Girls on Planes

While enroute to Carcassonne, France back in March...the unthinkable happened. My heart was lightened. Now, granted, that happened everytime the plane landed safely (I'm afraid of flying) but this was different. My heart was lightened by a little French girl, complete with pink blanky.

Now, to set up the story...

I was travelling with a good friend all around France, mostly by train, but to get from England to France, we flew. He took the window since he didn't get much sleep the night before at the airport and I took up the other two seats in our aisle by draping my legs across them. I drifted off into a half-sleep after takeoff and blared some Cartel in my headphones.

In this drowsy state, I was waiting for (and dreading) a flight attendent to come around and tell me to put my legs down. I didn't need to wait too long before I felt someone lightly touch my knee. Before opening my eyes fully, I swung my legs down and almost kicked a little girl in the head. I stopped myself, with one leg hanging above the little girl who looked about 3 or 4 years old. My other leg was already resting on the floor, with the little girl's hand and blanky on my knee. The warmth from her blanky was amazing (it was FREEZING on that flight). She just looked so sweet and innocent, her eyes were huge and light blue. She hardly blinked while she stared at me for a minute or two. I couldn't help but smile at her and it took everything in my body to resist reaching down to hug her. Eventually she looked from me to my friend sleeping against the window and started sucking on her thumb. With blanky in hand, she pointed to my friend and mumbled something. And I said something along the lines of, "yeah, he's sleeping." She looked confused so I said the same thing in French and then she giggled a little bit and put her blanky back on my knee.

We hit some slight turbulance, causing me to grip the armrests and sent the little girl tumbling to the floor. She pulled herself up using my jeans then pointed to a woman sitting a few rows up and said, "mama." I smiled and nodded and looked to the woman who gave me an apologetic glance. Then the little girl wandered back to her mother.

It's not until now that I realize this, but I never saw that little girl again; not even while leaving the plane once in France. But I know I'll never forget her, nor how calm and happy she made me in a matter of two minutes.

Just a story from my travels that few know about.