21 Days of Transformation: Day 15 – “You’ve Been Upgraded, Sir”

I handed my passport and boarding card to the stewardess…

She looked at it…

Looked back at me, perhaps deciding if there was a match…

She looked back at my boarding card and then ripped it into four pieces and dropped it into the bin by her side…

“What the…”

Before I could finish, she smiled, and handed me another one from beside her…

“Don’t worry, Mr. Jones, you’ve been upgraded to first class”.

The smile returned to my face, and so did the blood!

“Is that OK with you, sir?”

Is that OK with me? You’ve got to be joking!

“Yes… thank you… no problem at all”.

I replied as calmly as I could, but inside I was jumping with excitement…

I needed this…

My trip had been massively important, and my emotions were all over the place. I’d been in Calgary for almost 4 weeks, mostly spent on my own, over Christmas and the New Year and, despite that, I wasn’t really looking forward to leaving, so this was a real bonus.

I’d already completed the first leg of my flight home, from Calgary to Montreal. So now, I was on the final stage of my journey.

I settled into my very large and extremely comfortable seat. There was an empty seat to my right. I wondered if anyone would be sitting there. It’s a long way to the UK from Montreal and I hoped, if someone did sit there, we’d get on OK.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out…

Along came Pam. She was, I guessed, about the same age as me, and like me, had been upgraded… so that gave us something in common to start the conversation.

Then an announcement… take off was to be delayed, due to the extreme cold. There was no indication of how long, but we were to wait on the plane until further instructions.

Well, to cut a long story short, we sat on the plane for a couple of hours, then in the departure lounge for a further three hours, before being told we’d be put up in a hotel overnight for a 7am take-off tomorrow morning.

Since it was already 11pm and we’d need to back in the airport for 4am, that wasn’t the news any of us wanted to hear! But not to worry, they would lay on some mini-buses to shuttle us to the Hilton Hotel! Since that was likely to be a slow process, Pam, myself and 2 others hailed a taxi and ,after agreeing to meet for breakfast at 3:15am, we went to grab a couple of hours sleep.

As we chatted over breakfast in the hotel the next morning, and then on the plane, as we awaited take-off, it became clear that Pam and I were in Calgary for pretty much the same reason… to see our kids. We were both separated, and she was currently a teacher in the north of the UK.

I didn’t push Pam any further than she wanted to go in terms of her situation. I sensed there were still some raw nerves… and I think she sensed the same with me. But we both took comfort from the fact that we were in the process of moving forward positively, though not as fast as either of us would like.

We both went our separate ways at Gatwick, saying we’d get back in touch… though we never did. This was a chance meeting that suited us both. It made the journey back much easier and much more fun. There was a definite connection made, but it was one for the moment and not to be extended. Though I often wondered whether I should have called.

Maybe we could have helped each other.

We’ll never know.

It wasn’t until I’d driven back home to the Midlands and had a good night’s sleep, that I started to assess my time in Calgary. I was there at the request of my two daughters, who’d left to live in Canada with my ex-wife shortly after we separated.

It wouldn’t happen now…

It shouldn’t have happened then.

But leave they did.

It was a complicated process that saw them go, with contact and visits guaranteed by a legally binding agreement set out in court… which wasn’t followed.

The months that preceded my flight, were tough and emotional for all of us, and this visit was intended to sort out some of the problems, but mainly to give me and my daughters some time together.

In the end, we didn’t make much progress with either and I spent much of my time exploring Calgary on my own. My ex wasn’t in a good place, so this was never going to be easy. But I didn’t expect it to be quite as difficult as it turned out.

It felt like we’d missed a great opportunity to get things back on track.

Since then, we’ve all made progress way beyond what I ever expected. In hindsight, the trip had been far more successful than I initially thought.

We’d reconnected.

We’d started the long process of building bridges.

And now, those bridges are complete… just needing a little touching up from time to time.

21 Days of Transformation: Day 16 - The Fear of Death