Once my mom took me to Shanghai, China on her layover during Thanksgiving. It was an amazing experience to see the culture there and made me appreciate everything I have at home. The day we were supposed to fly home, one of the pilots said he had chest pains and was sent to the hospital. My mom started to freak out and she didn’t know if our flight would go, so she sent me to the airport with another flight attendants brother-in-law and his son. Once we got to the airport, there wasn’t any flights we could get on and the guys didn’t think to check if our original flight was going to go. We ended up driving back to our hotel that was an hour away from the airport. Right as I was stepping out of the taxi, my mom called me and was freaking out asking me if we was at the airport. My heart dropped, they found another pilot and my mom was on the plane that was about to leave. I had no idea what to do, I had just turned 15 and was completely lost. My mom was panicking because she had no idea what to do, she couldn’t get off the plane and she had to leave her only daughter in a foreign country.
Before I tried to get on another flight, me and my mom divided our luggage so I wouldn’t have too much with me, and I barely had any money with me and only a few of my things. I was able to get a room that night and made plans to met up with the two guys for breakfast. That night I sat in my room all by myself, confused with this feeling in my stomach that made me realize how serious the situation was. When my mom said that the flight was going, I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to think about how scared I was. The next day I walked around the city with the guys and had a fun time. We went and saw some famous buildings like the Pearl Tower and it was really cool. My mom had two flight attendant friends that were flying out that day so they took me with them and were so kind to me. I didn’t have enough money with me to pay for my hotel room and I had started to cry because I was freaking out and one of my mom’s friends payed for my room. They saved me and I can never thank them enough.
They helped me through the airport and made sure I was able to get on the plane. The whole crew helped me and made sure I was okay, like I was one of their own. I was able to get on the plane and sat in first class and sipped champagne while the plane took off. When we landed, the two flight attendants lived more south than I did so they pulled off the freeway where my mom was waiting for me in a gas station parking lot. Looking back it is a funny memory, but I was so scared when it happened.