An Airport Transport Moment

 

When we were coming home from Belize,

We had a couple of hours of down time in the Atlanta airport.

In fact, we got to the gate while they were loading another plane.

After the plane was loaded,

A few older people lingered at the gate.

The gate worker ignored them.

A couple of the lingerers figured out the answer to their questions on their own,

But one lady,

With a cane,

Just kept standing there,

Waiting—

And hoping—

To be helped.

 

As I watched the older lady being ignored,

I found myself feeling bad for her.

I understood why her face and body language were getting frustrated,

And I wanted to do something to help the situation but didn’t know what.

 

Then, all of a sudden, two airport transport workers came out of nowhere.

One particular worker went straight to the older woman and began to help her.

She helped her figure out that her gate had been changed,

Helped her get into a wheelchair,

And then rolled her away,

Talking helpfully and sweetly the whole time.

 

The worker was a young black woman,

Dressed in baggy clothes.

The woman was an older white woman,

Dressed very nicely in well-fitting clothes.

The pair was completely opposite,

Yet they were so beautiful fading into the distance

That I remember the scene vividly.

 

I imagine that working at the airport is difficult.

I imagine that gate workers deal with a lot of rude people.

I don’t know if there are rules about when gate workers can and can’t work with flyers.

And I don’t know what that gate worker was going through that day.

I just know that it looked really bad

That he ignored the older people standing there for help.

 

Ageism is real.

Sexism is real.

Racism is real.

So many -isms are real.

 

It’s up to us,

Like the airport transport worker,

To overcome the -isms that separate and divide.

 

Amen.