My sister and I didn’t have birthdays this year, but we received many gifts. On my sister’s birthday, we buried my grandfather. On my birthday, we flew cross-country to visit my dying mother.
My sister had planned to take a long weekend and fly East with her six-month-old to see Mom. I decided to join her and ease the stress of flying with a baby. Better yet, I’d upgrade her to first class.
I called Alaska Airlines.
“They don’t usually let me add a lap infant to a first class seat,” the customer service rep warned. “Let me see if I can find a work around.” She clicked away on her keyboard. "It worked.”
“Great. Is there another seat up front available for me?”
“No, she got the last one. Do you want to switch with her?”
“That’s okay. Let her enjoy it.”
“Wow. You’re a really good sister.”
I was too choked up to say thank you, to explain that I’d been feeling powerless after months of watching my mother deteriorate. Her illness was a tyrant that could have crushed her, but chose to let her linger, amused by her feeble attempts to fight back. Of course the customer service rep didn’t know this, but she acknowledged my humanity. That was a gift.
At 10 o’clock my sister and I boarded the red-eye to D.C. Passengers watched us wrestle a car seat, bottles, and diaper bag down the gangway. Instead of helping, they glared, irritated that we had brought along this tiny human who might disrupt their booze-soaked movie binge.
“Oh, I didn’t realize they allowed babies in first class,” my sister’s seatmate said. I wanted to tell him where he could shove those rude comments, that contrary to popular belief, first class was not exclusively for wealthy, white men. But I bit my tongue. Years from now I did not want my niece introducing me to her friends as “the crazy auntie who got kicked off the plane." I took a deep breath and rolled down the aisle to coach.
Being seated in first class my sister got to experience one of the few remaining dignities of airline travel: a hot meal. But it was difficult to eat while her daughter squirmed in her lap. The flight attendant saw her struggling and offered to hold her baby. As he bounced my niece down the aisle, my sister got to enjoy her dinner. That was a gift.
Like we’d done seven months before for my grandfather’s funeral, we took a cab from the airport to my mother’s house. That weekend we took pleasure in the ordinary. We cooked. We shared stories. We enjoyed each other's company knowing that our time together was short. We made old fashioneds as was family tradition. My mother couldn’t drink alcohol with her medicine, but she loved the smell of a freshly peeled orange. It reminded her of the glamorous parties her parents used to throw in the ‘70s where her father taught her how to make the drink. Muddle orange and sugar. Add a dash of bitters. Mix with bourbon. It was a family ritual passed down through generations. Like communion, it existed before us, and gave us hope that something sacred would remain after we were gone. That weekend together. That was a gift.
Our luck ran out on our flight home to Seattle. A man stared at us blankly while we struggled to hoist our bags into the overhead bin. I sat squashed in a middle seat in row 30. The flight attendant scolded my sister when her baby cried. My sister and I sat next to each other in silence, holding hands and crying, wondering if that would be the last time we saw our mother.
That night, I didn’t get to have a hot meal, or a comfortable seat, or even a birthday, but I had her, someone to prop me up when the weight of living became too much to bear alone. I looked out the window and thanked whatever higher power made silver cylinders that fly us to the ones we love, and old fashioneds, and sisters. She was a gift.