Before the panic attack on the airplane, I just wanted to be left alone. It’s absurd in hindsight, believing I could tough it out alone in a foreign country after the sudden death of my fiancé. Strong Black Woman™ was my default setting, though, a mentality born of necessity from a life devoid of crystal stairs.
Zahra, a Tanzanian airline agent in a crisp navy-blue uniform, escorted me through the terminal and explained to her colleagues in hushed tones how the despondent woman from the news came to be in her care. You poor girl, their sad eyes said as they waved us through to the next checkpoint.
I couldn’t bear the sight of the couples at our gate, sitting next to each other, talking, laughing, not understanding how quickly one of them could just not be here. I had lived in their world two days ago, before I knew how easily dream can become never-ending nightmare. At first, sleep was a piteous attempt to make meaning. Surely I would awake to find none of this was real. How could it be? People don’t just go halfway across the globe, propose marriage and then die. It was supposed to be the beginning of something, but no matter how many times I closed my eyes, the cruel finality of Steven’s death greeted me anew when I opened them. I was stuck here in this world without him, where nothing made sense and nothing ever would again. Sleep soon became a reprieve from which I was becoming dangerously apathetic about awakening.
“Your passport is here, okay?” Zahra patted a zippered pocket on my backpack. There was no room in first class for an upgrade, but the airline had assigned an escort for each leg of the trip. “I’m very sorry, my dear.” She hugged me, then passed me off to the gate agent, who tilted her head and looked at me with sad eyes as she scanned my ticket. Steven and I had discussed upgrading on the flight home but I didn’t want to be there without him. I didn’t want to do anything without him and I had to do everything without him. It was too much to think about, so I didn’t. I couldn’t. Fifteen minutes into the flight, I realized what Zahra must have understood when she had tried to upgrade me. There is considerably more space to fall apart in first class, a luxury not afforded in economy.
I opened a book at takeoff but the thoughts in my head crowded out the words on the page. Trading the book for my Kindle, I swiped mindlessly through the endless Netflix options. There was no story more morbidly compelling than my life. The more I tried to suppress them, the more intrusive thoughts and images I couldn’t unsee forced everything else out of my psyche and planted me firmly into this reality I so desperately wanted to escape. The one where I was on a plane going home without him. It was surreal and too real and too fucking much. Damp sweat that hadn’t been there a second ago covered my body. Why did I wear this stupid sweatshirt? I reached overhead for the air vent and pulled my hand back suddenly when I realized it was shaking. The middle-aged Asian man sitting next to me gave me a curious look when I held my hands in front of me, palms up, looking at them like I had never seen them before. Why were they shaking and why couldn’t I make them stop? And why was I sweating? Air. I needed air. I reached back up and fumbled with the vent, turning the nozzle this way and that until I heard the reassuring hiss of air flowing. I held up a still-shaky hand in front of it. Not enough air. I took a deep breath. It smelled like plane and people and not air. I just needed air, just one big lungful of outside and then I would be okay. But I couldn’t go outside because I was trapped on a plane for the next seven hours, a plane taking me further and further away from the love of my life each second we were in the air, air I couldn’t breathe because I was trapped on this stupid plane and there was nowhere else to go to get away from it all and no one to help me because my person, my love, my everything was dead. I tried to stand up. Couldn’t move. Something held me tight to the seat. Trapped. A scream rose in my throat. It trickled out as a whimper as I forced it back down. The seatbelt. Shit! I unbuckled it with trembling hands and pushed past my bewildered seatmate, desperate to get to the bathroom before whatever was happening spiraled completely out of control.
Normally I would have avoided touching every surface in the cramped lavatory. I gripped the edge of the stainless steel sink tightly with both hands, searching for something more solid than I was in the moment, something to keep me anchored during this frightening descent into madness. The reflection in the mirror stared back at me with callous resolve. You are losing your shit. You are NOT going to make them land this plane because you can’t get your shit together! Get it the fuck together, Kenesha! A few minutes later, when my breathing had slowed and my hands had steadied, the woman in the mirror started to look familiar. You need help, girl, she said. You can’t do this alone.
Heads turned and eyes followed me as I walked back to my seat for the carry-on bag I had forgotten in my haste. My seatmate’s face was full of questions. “Sorry,” I said, avoiding his gaze as he studied my face. “Can you pass me my bag?” He handed it to me wordlessly, his eyes brimming with concern. Once I’d settled back into my seat after the second trip to the bathroom – feeling lighter after taking a sleeping pill and changing into a t-shirt – he said something to me in a language I didn’t understand. I looked at him blankly and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” I said.
“Sorry. You. Oh my God,” he said, stringing together his limited English vocabulary to convey You poor girl. I finally met his gaze, the one I had been avoiding so I wouldn’t have to see my sorrow mirrored back to me. I did see my sadness in his eyes, along with his own. His took the form of compassion. I saw in them a deeply human urge to push past a language barrier and offer up the human connection he knew I needed in that moment. And in that moment, I understood it was not space I needed. It was people. People like this benevolent stranger willing to hold space for another stranger to fall apart, willing to hold my sadness while I put myself back together again. I nodded and let the tears come. Yes, I am that poor girl. He nodded and give me sad smile. I see you. You are not alone.
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