junk hauler

The plane was dark. There were a couple of portholes in the front of the plane and a window in the door where we boarded, but that was it. The dim running lights drained power from the aircraft, so the main power was saved for the operation of the plane, not us passengers in the back. It was relatively quiet; the rattling of the aircraft and it's cargo could never actually be described as quiet, but there wasn't a lot of internal human noise from where I was seated.

We rose at 4:00 to drive almost 2 hours in the fog and rain to get to the terminal by 6:20 to get on the space-available list. Then we had to load up the luggage; fortunately my husband was there for that. Loading onto the aircraft was something else entirely. Exactly how do you buckle an FAA-approved carseat into a webbed jumpseat again? After some help from a couple of obvious dads clad in desert BDU's, the three of us were satisfied with the tightness of the safety harness on the carseat. One of them even boosted her into it, buckled her in, and handed her the Pooh Bear that had dropped on the floor. My tired, grateful smile was returned with a tired, wistful smile. He'd get to hold his own again soon.

The takeoff was shaky, as expected. Someone who had slept through the stop at my terminal fell off their perch on the cargo and landed with a loud thunk, followed by peals of laughter. I smothered a smile and looked away. I wasn't part of their world; I didn't want to seem obtrusive. I busied myself with entertaining my daughter, all the while keeping us strapped in, just like we were on a "real" plane." She played with toys, got bored, ate small snacks, got bored some more. It was a long flight ahead of us and I was running out of amusements....

The miles slipped by below us and I could feel some of the stress of the day slip away along with those miles. That stress was replaced with a gnawing worry or slight fear. I'm not afraid of flying. I looked out the window to see how far above the earth we were. I love to look at the ocean from waaaaay up high and see whitecaps, like fine white pencil-lines on a canvas of shimmering blue. The clouds lazily drifted by under the wings and the sun laid golden fingers along the very edges of those clouds almost daring the liquid gold to spill into the ocean below.

She wriggled out of my arms again, desperately trying to free herself. She kicked the baby in my stomach and I dropped her to her feet, but never letting go of that precious baby hand. She was bored out of her skull. I led her back to our seats where and the backpack stashed with fun toys and snacks. Her juice cup was almost empty so I cracked open a bottle of water and urged her to swallow those last drops of juice. I remember them telling me that the environmental controls were iffy around Iceland, so we had to stay hydrated. It was starting to get chilly. I pulled the sweater over my daughter's head, carefully pulling the pigtails through and helping her with her arms. I put my arms through my own sweater, but my 29-week belly prevented me from buttoning it up.

She wanted to romp and play again, but I just couldn't. The baby was zapping all of my energy and my daughter wanted the rest. All I wanted was to curl up into a ball and go to sleep. One of the guys approached us from the middle of the plane. He had a great big wad of newspaper tightly scrunched into a ball and hastily secured with some electrical tape. He asked if she could play with them and I looked skeptically at the area and the guys. I heaved myself to my feet and walked her over to where they were playing some kind of make-shift soccer/kickball game between crates of cargo and canvas tie-down straps. My mommy-eye saw several potential hazards for an almost-three-year-old, not the least of which were several pairs of large feet in desert suede combat boots. They kicked the ball gently to her and encouraged her to kick it back. She did with gusto and the whole bay area broke out in laughter. The game was on.

One of my carseat helpers gestured me back to my seat and the warm Pooh blanket scrunched up. He assured me that she wasn't going to go anywhere, and that there were several dads present. He even pointed to the first aid kit above my head. Well, duh. A planeful of dads, coming home to see their kids....she was in good hands. I laid down on the webbing of the seat, the straps digging into my hips and shoulders, draped the blanket over me and dropped off to sleep almost instantly.

My nap was far from quiet and my mommy-sleep mode forbade me from sleeping deep enough that I couldn't hear what was going on. But when I finally dragged myself up again, I was rested a bit and starving. We hadn't had time to get food before boarding the plane and I was saving all the snacks for my daughter, hoping they would last another 5 hours. I was surprised to find my daughter sleeping, buckled into her carseat again, her sweater carefully folded on the seat by the backpack. One of the dads told me they "wore her out but good" and she fell asleep on the loadmaster's shoulder. So much for that mommy-sleep mode of mine. I stretched and peeked out of the porthole and saw that we were over land again. It was considerably warmer than when I went to sleep; I estimated that we might be over Jersey or New York.

Ahhh, home again. Just knowing we were in American airspace made me feel all tingly and happy. The stress of finishing out this pregnancy and possibly delivering the baby without my husband slipped off into the back of my mind. I was taken by surprise to see the loadmaster come up to me and tell me to buckle up because they were preparing for landing. I must have been out for three or four hours. That meant we were over Iowa, not Jersey. Almost home. My stomach flip-flopped.

The plane tilted several times and I held onto the webbing, the jumpseat harness squishing against my swollen belly. My girlie woke up during the descent and the pressure was bothering her ears, but I had no bottle or pacifier to giver her; she'd already outgrown those. Thankfully the rattling cargo drowned out her whining to all but me. We banked again and several hard bumps later, we were screeching along the runway, slowing down.

All the dads had their duffel bags slung over their shoulders, but they still managed to wrangle my 75-pound suitcase, the steamer trunk and the carseat down the steps for me. They left us at the terminal, the only civilian passengers, and milled around joking and laughing about delivered pizza and 24-hour Walmarts. Some of them were home, greeted with big hugs and squeals of happiness, walking away in small clusters of tears and laughter. The rest of them loaded onto the base shuttle bus that would take them to billeting for the night. I never did learn any of their names, even though they were written on their uniforms plain as day. I made a call to my parents to come retrieve us, since they had no idea if I would even get on the flight, let alone know when it would leave and when it would arrive.

Then I was alone, except for the girlie-girl and our luggage, on a deserted tarmac, in the heat of July. The aircraft turnover crew unloaded the cargo. Forklifts and fuel trucks scurried back and forth between warehouses and the plane. We watched as one aircraft took off, banked around the airfield and landed briefly before taking off again. The obviously new pilot was practicing "touch-and-go's" while my daughter ran in circles, arms splayed out like wings, yelling, "I want to fly those airplanes like the soldiers when I'm a mommy too."

Nothing would make me prouder.