The Best Hug of My Life

It happened at gate C-11 in the Dallas Fort Worth airport. It was last Thursday afternoon, March 12. My grandpa had died that Monday. My grandma, his wife of nearly 68 years, was about to begin a second battle with cancer. I had spent much of the previous 3 days working on a video to celebrate his life, and I was exhausted physically and emotionally.

Thanks to a dear friend I was able to fly as a "non-revenue" passenger. For those unfamiliar with this term, as the official guest of an airline employee I was paying next to nothing...but was flying stand-by with no priority over paying customers. My flight out of Reno was great - plenty of seats...mine was even in first class. But the Dallas airport was FULL. It was the official beginning of spring break and lots of people were flying to or through St. Louis. Too many. I was number 27 on the stand-by list. The problem? None of the next three flights were looking any better and the visitation was already underway. The service was at 10am the next morning. And the video was in my purse.

As I waited hopelessly for my name to move up the list, I had an idea. What if my brother Kevin happened to be flying through Dallas too? I called and his phone was turned off. I called Scott to check his schedule and sure enough, Kevin was going to be on the next flight out of Dallas! I waited a few more minutes and called him again.

This time he answered. "Why are you calling me? I'm on an airplane!"

"I thought you just landed," came my reply.

"Are you at C-11?"

My heart skipped a beat. He was heading my way...

What was probably about 5 minutes - the time it took him to take the tram over from the other terminal - seemed like an eternity. I paced impatiently in front of the screen that listed the stand-by passengers and frequently glanced down the corridor toward the tram.

When our eyes met from across the airport our steps quickened. And then it happened...the best hug of my life. I wasn't alone. My brother was with me and everything was going to be okay.

We walked back to c-11 where my name ended at #5. Closer, but not enough to get on that plane. We had 2 hours until Kevin's plane was leaving so we went to get some lunch. Scott called while were eating to check my status. At one point I passed the phone to Kevin and all he said was, "I got her." He smiled, and hung up.

We decided to save the salad for later and went to check on the flight. I identified myself as a non-revenue passenger and inquired as to my chances for getting on this flight. "None" was the harsh reply. I had a shot at getting on the 9:30pm flight, of course missing the whole visitation. I gave Kevin 2 copies of the video so he could take them for me. Somehow I would still make it before the service, even if I had to rent a car and drive all night. Admittedly, not a great plan B.

A little while later Kevin got up to use the restroom. When he came back, he handed me a boarding pass and said, "We won't get to sit together." What??? How did he get a boarding pass? Why did it say "First Class" on it? As I started to put the pieces together he just looked at me and said, "This was the only way to get you on that plane and I wasn't going to leave this airport without you."

We cried, and hugged, and cried some more. Then we sat together in the back of the plane and shared our salad while some random stranger enjoyed a first class flight to St. Louis. I guess he thought he was lucky. But I'm the one with the first class brother.