Story from the plane. Yesterday I flew from Hannover to Istanbul. Emotions were running high at the Turkish Airlines check in and boarding gate. Many tearful partings and many lost looking elderly, nervous to leave their sons and daughters behind to travel alone. I had been warned the flight was full and therefore had to checkin both bags, so ended up carrying more single loose items than usual, and not coping terribly well (left my computer at the coffee stand, left my mobile at security, and my scarf on my seat at the gate - all to be returned to me by a succession of lovely motherly souls, tutting at me with a twinkle of amusement at my disorganisation). Boarding the flight was more chaotic than usual and with all the loose items I was desperate to sit down. When I reached row 10, there was a smiling elderly woman comfortably sitting in my window seat (a 3.5 hour flight after two extremely short nights, I was relying on that window seat to catch up on sleep). I showed her my ticket to which she just continued to smile. I tried to say in a few different ways (mostly with actions and pointing as it became clear she didnt speak English and I dont speak Turkish) that she was in the wrong place. She just kept smiling, so I gave up and sat in the middle instead. Quite quickly, without saying one word either of us understood, we assumed a close interaction. I fixed her belt, adjusted the air for her, helped her with her cardigan and disposed of her sweetie wrappers. I had a hunch that when my food came she might want to share, and sure enough as soon as she saw I was leaving some of mine she began pointing and talking and eventually taking. Once shed finished, she decided she no longer wanted her table in front of her so proceeded to pile all her things on top of mine. I collected them all and cleaned and folded her table. Resigned to the fact that this lady saw me as someone who was looking after her (and that sleeping was out of the question), I did just that for those 3.5 hours. When boarding the bus after the flight, she came to find me and sat next to me. Was she presumptuous? Or was she quite right to assume that a younger person should look after the elder? I dont know, maybe both, but I was very happy to do the latter. After all, most of us need looking after at some point, and even if we seemingly dont need it we sure welcome it. I may well be without a computer to write this story on if I hadnt been helped at the airport. Nicky
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:36:32 +0000
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