My plane landed in Minneapolis too late to catch the connecting flight to Flint, Michigan. The people at the Delta customer service desk gave me a coupon for fifty dollars off a hotel stay for the night. Not a coupon for a full nights lodging costs, only fifty bucks. I called the “866” number on the coupon. After waiting on hold for twenty-five minutes, I gave up and called my company's travel agency. I asked for whatever hotel was closest to the airport, since the first flight out tomorrow was at 6:00am. The Crown Plaza won. It was already nearing 10:30pm when I started making my way to the hotel shuttle area in the airport. It was quite a walk through the maze of corridors to get to the one pick up area for the airport. When I got there, I picked up the "white courtesy phone" and called the Crown Plaza. It would "be about twenty minutes," the young lady said. The time slowly ticked by, with me and my fellow stranded travelers waiting for our hotels of choice.
Finally, after a half-hour wait Crown Plaza hotel shuttle showed up, I walked outside only to find that it wasn’t the shuttle for the Crown Plaza by the airport. It was for the downtown Crown Plaza. The shuttle bus told me I should look for the black Crown Plaza bus, not the white one. “Figures,” I mumbledt to myself and made my way back inside.
Standing in the waiting area, I saw someone being brought into the bus area in a red wheel chair. It was a chair designed to wheel people up and dwon narrow airplane aisles. It had no arms on the sides. As it got closer, I saw that a police officer was pushing the chair. The woman in it was crumpled on her right side, with her right arm shaking. When the police officer brought the wheel chair to a stop, I saw tears streaking down the woman’s face. There was a young man behind the police man; it looked like it could be the woman's son. He had a backpack with an electric guitar sticking out of it. He had a carry on duffle bag in one hand; the other was holding a book by Joseph Campbell. I moved closer, out of curiosity, if nothing else.
The policeman went outside for a minute or two, came back in and told the woman and her son that it would be the black Crown Plaza bus, and that everything was going to be okay I spoke up, "I am waiting for the same bus, I will watch for all of us." The policeman thanked me and told her she was going to be okay. I said, "I travel a lot. I know this is a pain, but it will work out." Just then, a pretty blonde girl walked over and said she was waiting for the same bus, she would wait with us too, and offered her help.
I told the lady in the wheel chair that I travelled a lot, and that I know how upsetting it could be, but it really would be okay. I asked her, “What happened?” She told me her story.
She had MS and has trouble walking long distances, especially quickly. She was taking her son to San Francisco for his birthday/Christmas/graduation gift. She told me that she had let the airline know in advance that she would need a wheel chair to get to her connecting flight. It wasn't there. She asked and waited and waited. It never came. The more upset she got, the greater the stress, the worse her MS symptoms became. In frustration, she tried to walk herself with her son but missed her flight. I said, "Wow, I am so sorry you had to go through all that!" and that she should call a TV station to publicly humiliate the airline. She laughed and said she was thinking about it because he was an advocate of people with disabilities.
I said to her son that I noticed he was reading a book by Joseph Campbell and we started talk about it. I told him that one of my all-time favorite DVDs was Joseph Campbell’s, “The Power of Myth.” His books, and The Power of Myth DVDs. Myths are not fiction. They are the common stories that all human cultures and many religions share.
When the shuttle bus came, we went out too it but there were too many other people! We had to go back into the airport terminal to wait for the next one. By this time we were starting to laugh about everything. She told me about her life, and the trials of a degenerative disease. She was an MD who specialized in neurology and endocrine system diseases. She had worked with many patients who had auto-immune disorders, like MS, before she was diagnosed with it. Laughing, she said that she had told God, “Thanks, but she really didn’t need to learn empathy. She already had it.” By the time the second shuttle bus arrived, there were five of us, strangers, but finding that community in being human. The woman's shaking had almost disappeared.
We talked about the number of people who have auto-immune diseases in the United States. I told her my best childhood friend was recently diagnosed with it, and another young friend of mine, Courtney, has been battling it for years. There is something terribly wrong with our environment, something in our food or water, that no one seems to be talking about. Too many people's immune systems are collapsing. We should view them as the canaries in coal mines. (Canaries were taken into coal mines because they were sensitive to the poisonous gases that would creep out of mines. The canaries would die before the miners had symptoms.) The warnings are being given, canaries are dropping dead all around us, yet no one seems to heed them. Just because most of us don't have MS, or an autoimmune disease, is no reason to ignore the tragedy going on all around us.
The second bus showed up, and we climbed in. It was about a fifteen minute ride from the airport. Finally, we got to the hotel and checked in. The woman, Tonya, her son Robert and I went outside for a cigarette. I said, "That's funny, my friend who has MS smokes too!"
Robert said, "Yeah, smoking is the least of your problems when you have MS."
After our smoke, we made our way into the hotel lobby, then off to our rooms for a few hours sleep. We said goodbye in the elevators, and I went to my room smiling about the experience, how my problems are really very small and how I was grateful that my plane was delayed. I met some really great people, and that God continues to show up in my life in surprising ways.
On a cold night in Minneapolis, God was a distressed woman in a wheelchair, battling MS, who needed some kindness and understanding.
Epilogue: My friend Courtney's battle with MS continues. 2013 was a rough year for her. Due to problems with insurance coverage, her treatment lapsed. He mom set up a donation page to raise money to pay for one year of health insurance, so Courtney can get to the Cleveland Clinic. (One of the best places to go in the USA for MS care.) Please help.
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