An Aborted Landing, Moral Responsibility and When To Stop Tracking Your Children

Image By Author - Krakow

“Have we not suffered enough?” I said to my husband as we dropped our ‘they’re definitely small underseat cabin bags’ to our sides, merged into single file and let the dogs sniff round our ankles. I wasn’t quite ready to let go of the solidity of his hand. I wasn’t carrying drugs. Half of our fellow passengers had already bolted for the exit. The rest, even though we were the only teatime arrival, would have at least another half-hour wait by the baggage carousel. It had been a subdued gathering at passport control. “Never again,” said the woman queueing nearby. “Do you know what happened?” another asked the official as he checked her photograph, questioned where she’d been as if it wasn’t obvious. “They don’t tell me those kind of things,” he replied.

It had all happened so quickly. I’d finished listening to week 14 of the ‘Bible In A Year’ at 1.5 speed, flicked to a random playlist. Elkie Brooks was singing about dreams falling and hitting the ground. Soon, I’d exit airplane mode and send “landed” to my mother even though she was probably glued to Flightradar24. I was planning ahead. I’d distribute the post. I’d open all the windows. I’d load the first laundry cycle. We’d order pizza for dinner. The back door of Belfast International was visible as I prepared for landing. But just as the wheels almost hit the tarmac, we were heading up again, climbing, airborne. The man behind was clutching my hair as he clutched my headrest. The woman I recognised from her unique running style on the streets of East Belfast had started to rock backwards and forwards. Her sons were looking on in horror. Later, the girls would describe the stream of liquid running from her nose. I could see the face of my youngest daughter frozen in terror as she sat sandwiched between the two older sisters who were now responsible for her. “It’s ok,” I mouthed across the aisle. At bedtime, as we discussed how well she’d overcome her fear of flying and that this shouldn’t change anything, she’d tell me the lady behind had leaned over and patted her shoulder. “It’s ok pet, I’m scared too,” she’d said. I was grateful for stand-in mothers.

It was a woman too who broke the eerie silence. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “This is a normal procedure. The captain will update you shortly”. “No, it isn’t,” said my husband.

As the various voices in my head went into freefall, I decided my only option was to trust in God, the captain and Tom Cruise. I blasted the theme from Top Gun in my ears in an attempt to drown out everything else. I thought about the will we’d eventually got round to making now we had adult-children and how I was still deliberating over who actually deserved my books. I also thought about S a few rows in front. We’d met for the first time just over twenty-four hours earlier. When I’d shared in my April newsletter about my 7am flight the next morning, how I was trying to figure out how to fit all my clothes into a small underseat cabin bag, deal with the last day of term activities, clear out all the half-eaten food from the fridge, manage the 120-mile round-trip to get the dog dispatched to his grandparents, she’d emailed to say how much my writing resonated with her, how she too was heading to Krakow as a birthday surprise. Maybe we’d bump into each other. Even though I had no idea what she looked like, I’d looked for her in Starbucks, in the departure lounge, in the toilets at John Paul II. When she’d recognised me at the Wielickza Salt Mine, we’d agreed to arrange a coffee catch-up, a proper introduction when we got back. I was keen to fulfil that promise. When the voice outside my head which was either the captain or Tom Cruise promised to have us back on the ground in ten minutes, the aviation expert in row 19 said “I think he was coming in too fast”.

I’d google it – an aborted landing. They called it a go-around. “The decision to make such a manoeuvre was based on the assumption that the present conditions could potentially make for an unsafe landing”. It didn’t really matter why. The main thing was to make a decision, do something to avoid something else. Not being able to reach my child would leave me unsettled for days. On day two of our trip, we’d visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. I was haunted by mothers separated from their children forever. I wasn’t sure I could let my mind continue to go there, one mother to another. As we’d departed for home, I’d listened to the cabin manager talk about some sort of injustice. “What can you do?” she said. It just wasn’t good enough anymore, this ‘can do nothing’. “Something,” I thought. For the next week, I’d tell everyone I met about the people who live in that Polish city, how beautiful it is, how much they’ve done to rise from the traumas of their past. I’d bemoan how ‘don’t get involved’ has become a way of life for us, how self-preservation means turning a blind eye. Historians will continue to debate how much was known about the Holocaust, how it was an ‘open secret’ by early 1943. There is plenty we know about today too, not just mass murder but nepotism, inequality, corruption, backhanders, pulled strings. We haven’t suffered enough. I’d share on social media what the guide at the museum had said about moral responsibility.

A week later, as Air Force One landed on its first attempt, I would wave my eldest two daughters off again. I’d pay extra for larger overhead luggage. I’d remind them about lifts that have no floors¹, unstable balconies, windows that open outwards, scarves on escalators, grapes. I’d re-emphasise left, right, left. I’d tell them never to take their eyes off each other nor their drinks. I realised I couldn’t always be there, protect them forever. I wondered if I’d ever stop tracking them. I’d watch blue dots tell me they were together 1162 miles away. As they left Alicante in the early hours of a Sunday morning, I’d spend a sleepless night waiting for a “landed” in Dublin, I’d follow iPhones through Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry. I’d smile when one messaged at 5.22am, “We’re in Lisburn… I think”. I’d thank their tennis coach for bringing them safely home. I’d load the first laundry cycle. We’d order pizza for dinner.

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1. Have you ever seen that episode of LA Law?