I swigged cough syrup as discreetly as I could, in a way that I hoped seemed all business rather than recreational.
I stowed a roll of square Halls lozenges in my jacket pocket for easy access during the flight. I didn’t want to be that tubercular-sounding bitty that you shoot the stinkeye because you know she is going to infect you, she’s going to ruin your trip or wreck you once you get home.
But I was on my third rapid-fire cough drop, and I couldn’t stop rattling. The more I tried to suppress the cough, the more my throat rollicked and bucked.
I was in the aisle seat, my favorite. The woman in the window seat, JoEllen, had discerned early on that I’m a teacher. She'd seemed friendly enough, but I buried myself in my book right away.
“You must like to read,” she’d said. There was no one in the seat between us. JoEllen let me stash my overstuffed backpack in front of our empty middle seat. I discreetly scissor-kicked in all my unfathomable legroom.
And I coughed. I dug through my pack for a water bottle.
On a plane, there’s a right moment to break the seal of conversation. I’m all for the polite greeting as you sit down, an apology if necessary as you grope for the end to insert in your seatbelt buckle, a self-deprecating remark as you splash coffee and fumble for napkins to swab it up.
The best moment to talk with your neighbor is often when the captain announces that we’re nearing our final destination and the flight attendants will come through for one final cleanup. When you stow and lock your tray table, you know that no matter how weird the conversation gets, it’s not going to last that long.
JoEllen and I were not yet close to our final destination.
If I closed my eyes, my cough relented a little, as though I could focus my mind’s eye on my throat.
JoEllen made her move. Clearly, I had surrendered my unwavering focus on my book.
“What kind of school do you teach at?” she asked. I told her.
“So you’re a Christian?”
Yes, I said, I am, though in my head I also inserted imaginary asterisks, like:
*probably not the kind of Christian you mean
*not the kind with a Jesus fish on her car
*more the kind with a decently stocked liquor cabinet
*who struggles to freshen her potty mouth.
“When you said you were a professor, I didn’t know,” JoEllen explained. “You all have some wild beliefs sometimes.” I like wild beliefs, but I didn’t say anything. I just waited for the Halls vapors to soothe me.
“Would you mind if I prayed for your cough?” she asked.
Sure.
“Would you mind if I laid a hand on your shoulder?”
OK.
JoEllen requested my healing and relief: “We speak the name of Jesus into her bronchial system.” I pictured the letters J-E-S-U-S, part Sunday School craft and part antibiotic, coursing through my lungs.
JoEllen didn’t speak in tongues, which both disappointed and relieved me.
I grew up in a family that would often pray out loud, at the Pizza Hut , say, as the server stands there with the extra napkins you asked for: “We thank you for this food, Lord, in the name of your precious Son Jesus…”
My cough didn’t vanish. Doves failed to soar from the seat back pocket in front of me. But JoEllen’s prayer did comfort me in my affliction.
She said that she and her husband traveled in their RV for seven years before they decided to retire in Montana. They’ve been trying to sell the RV for a while. “God runs our lives,” JoEllen said. “We must be hanging on to it for a reason.”
They chose their retirement town in Montana because of a church there with a food and clothing pantry and a wood ministry. The church bids on parcels of land and cuts the dead trees, then splits, bundles and delivers the firewood to people who need it. I had to admit that a church with its own logging truck is pretty badass.
There was nothing smug about JoEllen. I liked her. Still she triggered the anxieties of my Evangelical heyday. What if you’re the only Bible some people ever read? Are you proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ at all times? At best, it was exhausting. At worst, maddening.
From time to time I run across students who use everything they write, every comment they make to point explicitly to their Lord and Savior. I want to honor their point of view even as I freak out a little on the inside. Don’t pull me back into that vortex of worry! Lighten up, I want to say to them.
JoEllen didn’t put her inquisition beams on me, her doctrinal brights, and for that I was grateful. JoEllen seemed plenty light.
Nicole Sheets lives in Spokane, Washington, and blogs about travel and style for wanderlustandlipstick.com.