In-flight drama (negligent parenting, pride, travel revisited)

I can't figure out any way to make a short story out of this one, so you'll have to bear with me (again!). It sort of crosses all sorts of topic areas, from pride, to embarrassment, to negligent parenting, and of course memorable travel experiences. This is another one from the early years.

One of my most unforgettable flights brings me to our furlough way back in 1990. Jim's home assignment with Wycliffe Bible Translators was to travel the northeastern U.S. as a speaker for the Wycliffe Associate banquet tours. To ease his guilt at leaving me behind to single parent the three preschool boys, Jim got a temporary job beforehand (which God miraculously provided) in order to pay my airfare to take the boys out to Oregon for two of the five weeks he would be gone.

The purpose of my trip was to reconnect with our dear friends Ellie and Lila Quezada, who had left Guatemala two years earlier with their little boys Caleb and Joshua. If I were to write my story chronologically, you could see a pattern of God bringing the Quezadas in and out of our lives at strategic intervals, eventually calling them to join our ministry in Oaxaca in 2001.

Anyway, by the fall of 1990, I was in my first miserable trimester of pregnancy with Hannah. More than at any other time in my childbearing years, I felt the acute disapproval of total strangers to my apparent carelessness in "family planning." Being an expectant mother traveling with three little boys, I felt like a spectacle. I attempted to keep the children quiet so we could blend in and become invisible. Imagine a 1-, 3-, and barely 5-year old agreeing to be still and silent. Nothing doing! The day was a disaster as unwanted attention was always thrust my direction.

When we finally boarded the final plane in route to Portland from the Twin Cities, Mikey finally fell asleep. I was just beginning to relax when Timmy announced he had to go potty. "Not now!" I declared completely devoid of any trace of compassion (as only a sleep deprived young mother might do). "Please, oh please, not now?"

Looking back it is clear now what a dumb mistake I made, but when considering my options at the moment, I concluded that there was nothing to be done but send Christopher to accompany his little brother to the bathroom. What mother has not been guilty of heaping too much responsibility on her firstborn? I had complete confidence that this five-year-old could manage perfectly well in my place. With the boys gone, I promptly shut my eyes for a glorious moment of solitude.

Only too soon I was awakened by a commotion in the front of the plane. The flight attendants were banging on the restroom door separating first class and the rest of us, and a suspiciously long line of passengers were milling about, waiting their turn. Why couldn't they have been more discrete and used the restroom in the back of the plane? No, they were locked into the restroom in full view of the entire plane.

I sensed the disgusted stares of every eye as I lugged the now-awake-and-crying Mikey and pushed my way through the crowd to the problem. Sure enough, the boys were stuck in the bathroom, and couldn't figure out how to release the lock. Everyone was shouting directions, and in turn I was trying frantically to get my non-readers to see the "occupied" sign connected to the lock button. Yelling over the ruckus, "See the word? It starts with an 'O' like a cheerio. That's right. Then it has two 'C's like Christopher. Can you hear me? Climb on the sink and push the knob away from you!"

Eventually my trustworthy mature firstborn figured things out, the door swung open, and both children poured out of the confined space and hugged my legs. Applause and cheers filled the cabin. I was mortified. So much for being invisible! I gathered the remaining remnants of my dignity, raised my chin (oh, the folly of pride!), and marched back to our seats -- I, the pregnant lady with no husband and three little kids attached physically to me in any way possible.

If I had known I wouldn't see Lila again for nine more years after that, I might have cried for good reason. As it was, I mostly cried at saying farewell because of the dread of having to make the return trip to Ohio.

An interesting tidbit following this tale is that Christopher never seemed to suffer too greatly for his ordeal with Timmy that fateful flight. In fact Chris is a pilot today. Now that I think of it, though, he does seem to only fly the smaller aircraft with no claustrophobic restrooms on board.... Hmmmm.


Lila and me with our boys in a harvest day parade. Who would have believed we'd end up with fifteen children between our two families?


Christopher, Timmy, and Mikey with the Quezada boys in Oregon



Mikey in front of a display table when he and I flew out to hear Jim speak at one of the banquets in Ocean City, New Jersey. This little guy flew from coast to coast in one month.