What’s In Your Baggage?

We were snuggled under blankets in the confines of a Delta aircraft cabin, waiting for the last of the passengers to board. The air conditioner vents were blasting, and there was a general hubbub all around as scores of people hoisted their luggage up into the overhead compartments and found their seats. Joy was reading the safety booklet upside down when an urgent voice called over the loudspeaker: “Someone has lost a passport. Look around your seats please and alert us if you see a lost passport. This is very important. Please let us know if you find a passport laying somewhere around you.” Jonathan and I exchanged horrified glances and checked around our seats. 

We could immediately see that the people in front of us were especially worried about the passport loss. “She was sitting right here,” one flustered woman with a colorful scarf explained. “But they took her off the plane, yeah, they took her off already. She said she had the passport when she got on. She doesn’t know what happened to it. Let’s get her suitcase, where’s her bag?” The group of people most interested in the whereabouts of the passport seemed to be Ghanaians who had been living in America for some time, per their accents. I imagined that they had returned to their parent’s motherland of Ghana to visit their family roots and bring back memories to last a lifetime to America. Our hearts ached with them as they were separated from the now passport-less young girl who was forlornly relegated to the outside of the plane. 

A flight attendant helpfully came along and searched everywhere they had just been searching, mid the scrutiny of Miss Colorful Scarf. Next, two airport handymen appeared in yellow neon jackets with screwdrivers and took apart the seat where the girl had been sitting. All to none avail.

As Joy pulled out the Flight Safety Card for the sixth time to look at the cartoon pictures of people sliding down the exit chute, we watched as concerned travelers appeared from various parts of the plane. Obviously, they had starting to wonder if the frequent loudspeaker announcements about the missing passport were connected to one of their own traveling party. Miss Colorful Scarf made sure everyone knew the latest of The Loss and The Search.

As the minutes ticked by, we could tell that the flight personnel were getting close to deciding to leave without the unfortunate young lady without a passport. Miss Colorful Scarf was getting more and more worked up. She pulled down her friend’s luggage and searched it, then after ten minutes repeated the rummaging process. She explained the whole deal to everyone who came up to see what happened. “She was sitting right here on this seat, and they took her off because she didn’t have her passport, and we can’t find it anywhere! Some men even came and took apart the seat to look for it! They took her off the plane!” 

“Well, we can’t find it. We can’t look forever.” The flight attendant who had been very helpful and kind was now gently firm. “We are going to have to stop looking.” 

Moments later, a voice came over the loudspeaker: “Welcome aboard! Thank you for flying with Delta, we hope you enjoy your flight.” Suddenly, a shout exploded from the seat in front of us. It was none other than the flustered woman with the colorful scarf. Her tone was half elated, half dipped in the most woeful chagrin. “The passport is here, everyone. It’s here. I have the passport. It was right here, in my bag.” A flight attendant hurried up, and sure enough, there was the missing passport. “Must have fallen in somehow,” she tried to explain in utter sheepishness, as the entire cabin clapped and cheered, smiling with eyebrows arched high above their mirthful eyes. When exactly the missing passport hopped into the bag of Miss Colorful Scarf will always be a mystery. That was, hopefully, the closest that one young lady will ever get to losing a passport and a flight back to America.

As we taxied down the runway toward the midnight skies, my adrenaline still high from the excitement of the lost passport, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened. 

Many times in our human nature we can tell that the gigantic, ridiculously painful problems around us are so obviously caused by other people and their issues. What if perhaps instead of only frantically blaming, we would check through our own baggage to see if therein may lie clues to help solve the problems at hand. Sometimes in sorting through our own baggage we make discoveries that can actually help the others with what they face. Sometimes when we do what we can personally instead of simply blaming others we find answers we didn’t imagine existed.

Thankfully though, it’s not often that a cabin full of people clap and cheer when we uncover mistakes we’ve made.