Trying to Control the Universe

Or Why Southwest Airlines is the Worst Airline in the World

Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.

Or, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. 

Or something like that.

Some such quote that reminds us all how little control we have over the universe.

That about sums up the circumstances of the second half of our Christmas break.

The first half was decent. Christmas happened. Kids got presents. We cleaned up a lot of wrapping paper. Recycled a lot of empty boxes.

And then we packed our suitcases to head to Florida. The kids, even Nate and Sam, actually packed two days ahead of time. Tess always packs well in advance. She loves a good beach vacation, and as always, Lou follows her example. But Nate and Sam are procrastinators, so I practically had to pick my jaw up off the floor when they wheeled their full suitcases in and lined them up next to Tess’s and Lou’s. 

I didn't check either one—Sam’s pretty notorious for forgetting something critical, like underwear—but since we also managed to squeeze in the wrapped gifts for my nephew and nieces, I wasn’t planning on making a single edit. We were ready!

And then, that evening, we got a cryptic email from Southwest Airlines. Many of you probably got the same one. Something about how they were expecting travel irregularities or some such nonsense that I’m still furious about. 

We had already known that there were delays and cancellations on Christmas Day. Two of my brothers, along with their wives and kids, had flights that morning, and it was quite hairy. My youngest brother got bumped from his flight—but not his wife and baby—so he ended up spending 12 hours on Christmas at BWI airport, watching Southwest implode all around him. 

So although we prayed that our direct flight from Kansas City to Ft. Myers would happen as scheduled on Wednesday morning, we weren’t too shocked to discover on Tuesday that our flight was now canceled. Not delayed, but canceled. 

Yes, it was weird that they canceled it a day in advance though.

Weirder still was the fact that every other Southwest flight out of Kansas City was also canceled FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS.

Tighe scrambled to find other arrangements. Every other airline out of KC, to just about anywhere, was booked. If you wanted to fly out of KC and didn’t already have a ticket, you were pretty much screwed.

We couldn’t get anywhere! We started exploring other options. Driving. Driving to St. Louis, to Nashville, to Atlanta, then hopefully hopping on a plane for the remainder of the trip. No flights were available. Renting a car to drive to Ft. Myers, then hopefully flying home as scheduled at the end of the week. 

I was desperate to get to my parent’s house in Florida. Desperate! 

I’ll admit: there were tears. My tears. Which, I discovered, are drops of wet saltiness that emit from the eyeballs.

It would be the first time my kids had met their newest cousin and the first time my whole family had been together since covid started. I was beyond excited for this trip. 

Aside from driving the twenty-two hours to Ft. Myers, there were no options. 

Driving.

With four kids.

One of whom is Lou. Who’s only 3, wild as hell, and still rather unreliably potty-trained. I mean, he’s pretty good, but if I asked him to pee in a bottle while strapped in his car seat… well, I just don’t know that he has the motor skills to keep from peeing on me or any other object in that car.

So, hesitant to drive, we wavered, still deciding, still hoping that maybe, just maybe, Southwest would get their act together and resume normal flight operations. 

Still semi-optimistic, I didn’t unpack the kids’ suitcases.

In the meantime, Tighe stopped in to see his grandparents who live only a few blocks away. His grandfather didn’t get out of bed at all on Christmas Eve, the last time we had seen him, and it was being reported around Tighe’s very large family that he hadn’t gotten out of bed in more than three days. 

Nor had he eaten. And aside from a few utterances of “I love you” to some very select people, he hadn’t really spoken either.

“It’s going to be soon,” Tighe reported to me when he got home an hour or so later. “He didn’t even know who I was. He kept calling me ‘the new guy.’”

“Yes, but I still refer to you as ‘the new guy,’” I said, trying to minimize his deathbed status. He was 88, plagued by COPD and early onset Alzheimer’s, along with a myriad of other geriatric issues. But remembering my 100 year-old grandfather’s long, seemingly endless runway to death, I was hopeful, honestly believing that Tighe’s grandfather still had several more months. 

My grandfather was given last rites several times before finally passing away in 2017. In fact, at one point after he hadn’t woken in almost 24 hours, my uncle and mom were with him, praying the rosary and saying goodbyes, when he shot up in his bed and asked for coffee. He lasted another month or so after that.

But Tighe’s grandfather was not as stubborn. Which is ironic because I knew him to be a very stubborn man. Much more stubborn than my good-natured, jovial, Polish grandfather. 

So while I did a deep-dive into the fall of Southwest Airlines and all their many issues, Tighe was doing a deep-dive into communications with his family—aunts and uncles, cousins, siblings, and his parents. 

We shared periodic updates with one another, over the chaos of our fighting, screaming children.

“Tighe. Did you know that some Southwest flight attendants can’t get in touch with headquarters so they have to share hotel rooms with flight attendants from other airlines??!”

I was indignant. Self-righteous. On a rampage. 

“Erin. Nana said he still hasn’t eaten.”

Tighe was getting increasingly worried.

“Maybe he’s doing a post-Christmas detox.”

Please don’t cancel my vacation, was just about all I could think.

We went to bed that night with no news from Southwest Airlines and no plan to travel to Florida, and woke up the next morning to still no update from Southwest and another update from Tighe’s grandmother and one of his aunts.

The gist: He still hasn’t eaten and he’s only had the briefest of wakeful moments.

Suddenly our priorities shifted. I mean, Tighe’s priorities had probably shifted long before mine; I was still clinging to hope.

Before I knew it, I went from preparing for a week in sunny paradise with the people I love most in the world to preparing to host my in-laws. Indefinitely. 

And don’t get me wrong, I knew this wasn’t about me anymore. I mean, I was still devastated that I wasn’t going to get to see my family, that my kids still wouldn’t get to meet their youngest cousin, and that I’d now have to mail everyone’s Christmas present. 

But I do love my husband’s extended family. And I completely respect the amount of love and admiration Tighe has for his grandparents. We visited them almost every Sunday after church for the last two years or so.

So in reality, it wasn’t difficult to make that pivot. 

Though my skin could really use a dose of Florida sunshine.

I blinked back tears when I called my mom to tell her we weren’t coming. She understood, of course, and I tentatively promised to book a trip in March or April. Maybe both. 

And over the next few days, we celebrated life. And cherished little moments together. And gave thanks for everything and everyone we have. Tighe’s grandparents house suddenly became the hangout, the place to be. Food, drinks, lots of people in and out. 

Lots of waiting, lots of laughter, lots of beautiful stories, lots of tears, and lots of saying goodbye.

Tighe’s grandfather finally passed just after 1am on New Year’s Day. The joke was that he made it to 2023 so his wife will be able to file joint tax returns this year. Tighe was in the room when he took his last breaths, as were both of his parents and several aunts and uncles. I know he’s so grateful for that experience and he’ll never forget it.

And our kids will never forget being there, too, with their very large extended family, watching the fragility of life slip away from their elderly great-grandfather, watching their great-grandmother sit at his side for days on end, holding his hand and kissing his face.

They’ll never forget the grandiosity of that funeral. They’ve learned that life is precious and sacred, as are the ties that bind us. And for me, selfish as I am, I’ve grieved my own grandparents all over again. And celebrated their lives in a way that I hadn’t given myself a chance to before.

None of that would have happened had we powered through the long, neverending drive to Florida. Or if our flight hadn’t gotten canceled to begin with.

I’m not saying I’m grateful for Southwest Airlines and their poor planning, their possibly corrupt downfall. We’re still debating whether we’ll ever fly with them again. We received full refunds plus an additional 25,000 points for each ticket, and they’ve promised to reimburse us for other inconveniences, like mailing all those Christmas gifts. 

But do I trust them to get us to our Spring Break destination? I don’t know. That’s not the point of this story.

The point is that life changes fast. And it’s out of our control. Life is precious. We are only guaranteed this present moment, right now. And we should be grateful for each extra blessing.