COLUMN: Don’t Mind the Mess – Fear of flying

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/04/2024 (446 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

My son in Vancouver wants me to come for a visit.

For a mother with full-grown kids, such a request should be treated as a gift. Young adults are so busy with work and school and their active social lives. When one of them is actually willing to put all that aside, for a full week, just to spend time with me, I should jump on the chance like a hungry monkey.

I’d love to take him up on it. Truly. But there’s a big problem: I hate flying. Not just the “I can’t stand airports, and the fees are so high, and the seats are so uncomfortable” kind of hate.

It’s more of the “I’ll die in a fiery plane crash” kind of hate.

I Googled it: Aerophobia is an extreme fear of flying. People with aerophobia might feel intense anxiety before or during a flight. This condition can interfere with your ability to travel for work or pleasure.”

Ya think?

I’m not sure where my fear of flying comes from. Maybe it was all those scary airplane disaster movies I watched as a kid. None of those passengers fared very well, unless you think drowning in the Atlantic is okay.

“You’re just being silly. Flying is safer than driving,” people tell me. They scroll on their phones and smugly show me statistics to support that claim.

Not a fair comparison, I tell them. “When you have a car accident, there’s still a tiny chance of survival. In an airplane, not so much.”

They do have some evidence in their favour. I did survive my last flight. Again, it was to visit family in B.C. The first leg of the journey saw me change flights in Calgary, where I had an altitude nosebleed so bad, I thought I might need a transfusion.

Pale, with an armful of Kleenex, I embarked on the next leg of the journey. Feeling that plane struggling so heavily to take flight, like a bear trying to climb a ladder, I was thinking, “There’s only two ways this can end: very good or very bad.”

Once airborne, I took a deep breath and tried to find my inner peace. But I forgot to mention… The son who now wants me to come for a visit was travelling with me at the time. He was two. And he hated flying even more than I did.

He screamed like a banshee the whole way there.

He wanted to run up and down the aisle. He did not want a seatbelt. He hated the food. He wanted to stretch his legs and look through all the other windows. Every other passenger on that flight was ultimately rendered deaf, and secretly longed for parachutes, so they could get away from my crazy kid.

Mothers and flight attendants offered him treats. There were businessmen in suits handing him pens and paper, and probably would have offered money if they thought it would shut him up. Maybe I should have suggested it.

He was inconsolable, and only came up for air when we were finally back on solid ground. While the other passengers bolting from the plane would beg to differ, maybe his two-hour tantrum wasn’t such a bad thing.

It got my mind off the thought of falling to my death.

Since then, that boy has flown more times than I can count. I, on the other hand, still appreciate the ground beneath my feet.

“Is this the summer you’re finally gonna come see me?” he asks.

“I haven’t seen any evidence of feathers yet, but I’ll think about it.”