Holding Patterns
“Tell the pilot to shit and get. It’s time to get this dog in the air.”
His gravelly voice carried up the aisle of the plane, rough and insistent. Heat blazed from my cheeks as more-patient passengers glanced back at us. I reached for the arm he’d raised in protest, lowered it gently, and whispered, “They’re almost in the air, Grandpa.”
I had flown eight hundred miles from Washington to Arizona to bring my eighty-two-year-old grandfather back to a nursing home. I’d survived the chaos of traveling with two toddlers and a teenager, but this was different. All my life, I’d heard how much he hated flying, so I looked for a direct flight back to minimize the discomfort for both of us. I felt anxiety about flying with the unpredictable man who had raised me, now trapped in a failing body and mind. But despite the sins of his past, I couldn’t leave him to die in Arizona.
After his fifth attempt to get up and leave mid-flight, I buckled his belt again.
“Sit down, Grandpa. Have a sip.” I lifted his Coke and guided the straw to his lips. “We’ll be there soon.” I smiled, patting his arm. He believed he was coming to live with me, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. I was a single parent with a full-time job. I couldn’t care for him—and I wouldn’t have him around my daughters.
Forty minutes out from landing, he shouted, “I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Shit. I secretly wished he’d just go in his diaper. “Are you sure? We’re almost there.”
He was already unbuckling his seat belt, so I didn’t fight it. He pushed himself upright and gripped a seat on each side of the aisle. I slid an arm around him, steadying his weight as we shuffled toward the back of the plane.
I could feel the pained glances of people watching as we passed on our way to the bathroom. For the first time, I appreciated the tiny airplane stall. If I could maneuver him inside, I wouldn’t have to stand next to him and support him while he went.
I prayed he didn’t have to poop.
After several minutes, I heard him fumbling with the door. I shifted, shielding the opening so no one could see inside. I exhaled, grateful I didn’t have to wipe him. Pulling up his bottoms, I said, “Let’s wash your hands.”
His hands—freckled with dark spots, trembling, skin thin as paper—looked foreign to me. I didn’t recognize them as the same hands that had touched me, and my mother, so many decades ago.
We made it back to our seats. We landed. By nightfall, he was settled in the nursing home in Washington.
He died three months later. The long holding pattern finally over.
I still sometimes find myself circling, but each time I pass over the wreckage, it feels a little further away.
Holding Patterns was originally published in Short Reads.
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Michele, there are so many undercurrents floating in your well-crafted story. For me, it's about forgiveness, loyalty, caring, patience, healing, protectiveness and, ultimately, resilience. All very touching and thought-provoking on this Sunday morning. Thank you.
This piece was something I could relate to…. I was a caregiver for my father for over 3 years. The bathroom scene. And the description of the hands such a great description. I had recently noticed my mom’s hands in the same way.