Ode to Unexpected Kindness

A short story about grace and motion at the airport.

Every so often, I've been writing short odes, notes of gratitude about life on the move.

Some are about running, some adjacent to endurance sport, others small glimpses of serendipity. Think of them as postcards from life in motion. Maybe they'll spark something for you too.

Midjourney generation.

According to fossil evidence, homo sapiens have roamed the earth for 300,000 years, time enough to paint caves, compose symphonies, and split the atom. But not long enough, apparently, to figure out clear ground-transportation signage at airports.

Thus my wife and I, with our exhausted 9-month-old in tow, found ourselves at the wrong shuttle pick-up area.

We stood befuddled, looking for the bus that would deposit us at the distant lot where our car was parked. Suddenly, there was parking shuttle . . . over our heads! We could see it, a bus stopped on a roadway one level up, 30 feet directly above us.

“Crap!” I exclaimed. “We gotta get up there!”

San Francisco International Airport’s terminals are stacked like a layer cake, something the signs and shuttle app we used to request pick-up failed to communicate. It was past midnight and our child was in an exhausted fugue state, edging toward meltdown—a “we must drop 1,000 tons of boron into the open reactor” sort of meltdown.

We needed to catch this bus.

I shouted for Caitlin to follow me as I manhandled our checked bags and stroller, roll-dragging them back across the crosswalk into the terminal. She jogged behind, baby in arms. We reached the entrance, the doors sliding open.

“Just go! Stop the shuttle,” shouted Caitlin.

Dropping everything but a rolling bag to use as collateral with the driver, wedging it under my arm like an oversized football, I bounded up the escalator, three steps at a time. To the top, then a hard 180-turn back to the exit, my jeans whip-whipping the zipper-noise of denim friction.

Goddammit, you once closed a 10K in 60 seconds, I thought, zagging through a sleepy couple tugging roller bags. You can catch a shuttle. Through the exit to the roadway I sprinted, across the road, near hurdling the hood of a Tesla to reach the oh-my-god-it’s-still-there shuttle.

“Well, there you are!” smiled the driver, completely relaxed as I careened into the shuttle door. He’d been waiting, somehow knowing we were nearby. Turns out the shuttle app shared our location data. He knew we were close.

Given the hour, we were the only folks needing pick-up. “No problem, take your time!” he said, in no hurry. I exhaled and retrieved my family and luggage. We loaded into the shuttle, spilling over with thanks.

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As the shuttle pulled out onto the 101, damp Pacific air condensed on the windshield. In the darkened cabin the driver chatted amiably, the wipers punctuating our conversation every so often.

He was, we learned, an immigrant. From Central America, he said, newly arrived to work and support his family, He’d only been here a few months.

“I miss my kids. But . . . ah, America. Nowhere better to try to make it, right?”

How could we disagree? We were here with him, were we not? Our ancestors had made the same calculation. Even now, when the fabric of the American dream looks faded, we were woven together within this bus, rolling along the western selvedge of a continental experiment in self-governance. Distant strangers telling stories of our history.

At a stop light, he unlocked his phone. Leaning back, he showed a picture of his daughters. “Everything for them, right?” We nodded, offering tired smiles in the dark.

We pulled into the lot and the shuttle rumbled toward our car. He helped us with our bags and I tipped him with Venmo and he patted me on the back. “You’re doing good, new dad? Ok?” He stepped back up into the shuttle and pulled it away.

I think of him now, knowing his life as a foreign resident is almost certainly more tense, the apparatus of the state having shifted away from improving the wellbeing of its constituents toward the violent expulsion of those deemed threatening.

But in the parking lot, I merely stood in the dark, watching him drive down the lanes between the cars and back to the airport. The shuttle’s tail lights faded into the fog as Caitlin latched our whimpering child into the car seat.

I loaded our belongings into the car. The air felt cold against my skin.

Thanks for reading. If this story made you think of your own small but lasting encounters, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

And if you know someone who might appreciate an airport shuttle adventure, feel free to forward this along.

Related from Footnotes

Enduring a Brutal Age

Ode to Being Dinged Up

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Tweets of the week

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That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading.