192. TSA Baby

Today we celebrate the beauty of helping someone else…and getting to hold a stranger’s baby.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

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I travel a lot for work, but I don’t often travel with my husband. Someone has to be around to watch the children we do have, and it’s a lot to ask: come stay at our house and be a mediator between three kids at three different developmental stages. Drive them to and from school. Check their homework. Feed them several times a day.

We were on our way home, and he’d gotten through security before me, which is good because we’ve been together long enough that he no longer thinks it’s cute that I like to get to the gate right when the doors are about to close, and I was waiting to put my bag on the conveyor belt for its little X-Ray.

In front of me was a younger mom, traveling alone with a baby.

If you’ve never done this, here’s what you need to know: you are no longer whoever you are, you are a roadie and the baby is the star of the show. You are carrying several bags with clothing changes and diapers and food and milk or formula and toys and books. You are carrying the car seat you’ll need at your destination. You have YOUR OWN STUFF. And you probably also have a stroller.

The gear has gotten better since I had my last baby, but it’s still a lot of stuff, and this mom was feeling the pressure of a line forming behind her. Which I hated because you know what? We all belong at the airport. Airports aren’t just for busy business men shouting into their airpods. Other people travel too! In Frequent fliers are just as important as the frequent ones!

Anyway. She had to disassemble the stroller to PUT IT THROUGH THE X-RAY and I was helping her get all the things on the conveyor belt and she looked at me and said, “i’m so sorry, but would you hold my baby for me?”

And I said, “OH MY GOD I THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER ASK.” 

She unbuckled this baby and handed this baby to me and I held this baby on my hip and swayed back and forth the way I did with my own babies.

For a lot of reasons, my baby days are over, and yes I am grateful for the children I have and I am also missing the children I don’t have, and never will. That sounds too selfish, to greedy to say out loud when I have children, and no, I do not say this to this mom.

I just hold her baby and sway back and forth. The stroller goes through and so do all our bags, and then we are all on the other side.

She kept thanking me and apologizing and I kept telling her to shut up, stop, it was nothing.

It was nothing! And it wasn’t nothing. 

What a thing it is to need help, and to have that need met.

What a thing it is to be needed and able to help.

What a thing it is when those two things intersect at the exact right time. 

What a thing it is to be a part of the world, where so many of us are exhausted and overwhelmed by our needs, or by the needs around us. What a thing to be alive in this world, passing by and through each other’s lives in all of these tiny ways.

I don’t remember why I was traveling with Matthew, or where I was going, or even what airport I was in, but I remember this moment, and I hope I always do.

It’s nothing – I held a baby in the TSA line, for crying out loud – and it’s everything.