Friday the 13th at 35,000 Feet

January 13th. It’s coming up. I’ve checked—though I don’t really need to, because, well, I know how a calendar works. Still, I double-checked, just to be sure it isn’t a Friday. Friday the 13th. But thank goodness, it’s not. It’s a Monday.

Whew.

I’m not someone you’d call superstitious. Broken mirrors, ladders, black cats crossing my path—they don’t bother me. For most of my life, Friday the 13th didn’t, either. It was just another date, nothing more.

Until two years ago. Friday, January 13th, 2023.

That night, I boarded a plane—late, tired—from Boston to Milwaukee.

So, I can feel your anxiety rising already. You’re wondering if you should just stop reading right now. I wouldn’t blame you, given the (expert) way that I’ve set the stage. Really, I wouldn’t.

That said, let me put your mind at ease: I am very much alive at the end of this story (obviously). This isn’t some tale of terror, it’s more of a PSA.

That evening, I was heading to my hometown with my oldest daughter for my grandmother’s memorial service. My grandmother—my mother’s mother—was the matriarch of our family. She lived a life that was both deeply challenging and profoundly magnificent.

She grew up poor, was kicked off the family farm when she became pregnant at 16, and endured years in an abusive marriage to an alcoholic. But she didn’t let those circumstances define her. She divorced—a bold move for a single mother of 5 in the late 1950s—earned her degree, and became the first female foreman on the engine floor at Kohler Co. My grandmother was always a first, always breaking barriers.

More importantly, she dedicated her life to serving others. As an advocate and activist, she worked tirelessly to lift up women and children in poverty and difficult situations. She was a trailblazer, yet she described herself as “ordinary.” Humble as she was, she was anything but ordinary. Her passing felt like the end of an era for our family—a monumental loss, but also a moment to honor her incredible legacy.

So despite the cold January night, I was happy to make this trip. Friday the 13th: the memorial service would be Saturday, and we’d head back to Boston on Sunday. Easy peasy. Or so I thought. (see how I did that again?)

We arrive at the airport, and guess what? Delay. And then another delay. No problem. We grab some food, come back to the gate. Delay. Still fine. We walk around, buy some souvenirs, come back to the gate. Delay.

Fast forward three or four hours. Some mechanical issue with the plane. I can’t recall the exact details, but it was something about a system that wasn’t working—something connected to the heating. Not the heat itself, but something that relied on it, apparently critical enough to ground the plane until it was fixed.

Eventually, I head to the bathroom, and just as I’m about to finish up, I get a text from my daughter: "We’re boarding NOW. Please hurry!" So I rush back to the gate.

We board the plane (our seats are all the way in the back—of course). And wow, these seats are tiny. Oh, and wow, I didn’t expect this many people heading to Milwaukee from Boston on a Friday night. And wow, it’s hot in here. Really hot.

Okay, no problem. We buckle up, the doors close... and then? False alarm Delay. Yup. Everyone gets off the plane.

Now we’re sitting around waiting again. Wine helps. Around 10:30 p.m., we board again. Back to the tiny, overcrowded, sweltering plane. Buckle up... and wait. And wait. The heat in here is borderline unbearable.

And then: “Whoops.”

No, we’re not going anywhere. But hey, at least we didn’t pull away from the gate! So, the doors to the plane stay open, and it’s now 11 p.m. My daughter and I exchange a look. The kind of look where no words are needed. This is not a good idea.

Without even speaking, we both stand up, start grabbing our bags, and—just as we do—the doors snap shut. Officially sealed in. No turning back.

Now we’re trapped. On this plane. This hot, broken plane. On Friday the 13th.

We exchange another look, the kind where no words are needed, only they are different words now.

Taxiing starts. Then takeoff.

And then? Turbulence. So. Much. Turbulence.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking—turbulence won’t take down a plane. And you’re right. It doesn’t. So I’m not worried. Really, no problem. I’m sure our pilot—who looked about 12 years old—is well-trained and completely capable of flying through bumpy air.

He’s got this. Any second now, he’ll smooth things out.

But nope. He doesn’t.

Still, not a problem. I’m calm. Until about 20 minutes in. That’s when the kind of turbulence starts where you stop pretending it’s normal and begin glancing around at the other passengers. You know, to see if they’re feeling what you’re feeling, as if that somehow validates your concern—or changes the situation. And then it happens.

WHACK.

I don’t mean a little jolt. I mean, WHACK. Imagine one of those towering Greek gods peering down at Earth. He spots our tiny, broken plane innocently slicing through the night sky. And for reasons unknown—probably because another god (or goddess) got under his skin—he decides to swat us. Hard. One massive smack.

And just as I’m trying to process that, he does it again. This time from the other side.

SMACK.

This is apparently hilarious to him. Meanwhile, back in row 127, I watch a guy’s head—six rows in front of me—jerk forward like a crash test dummy. And then I notice: whatever I had on my lap? Gone.

I barely have time to register that before it happens again. This time, the plane doesn’t just lurch sideways. The nose dips.

We drop.

And then again.

At this point, I’m bracing myself, but certain these are the last moments of my life.

Surely the pilot will come on now and reassure us. I’m ready for a calm voice to tell us that “everything is under control.”

But no. Instead, in his decidedly not-calm 12-year-old-sounding voice, the pilot comes on the intercom, skipping the usual pleasantries. No “Ladies and gentlemen…”—just straight into: “We’ve notified air traffic control that we are in descent.”

Wait. What? Did he say descent?

And then, realizing he’s just terrified 74 passengers, he tries again: “We are requesting to descend.” I think that means he’s hoping to find smoother air at a lower altitude. Spoiler: there’s no smoother air to be found.

At that moment and every one after, every single one of those 550 miles per hour becomes painfully obvious. The turbulence doesn’t stop, and I suddenly remember—Oh yeah, my child. My daughter, who I should have been comforting, holding, reassuring. Except I wasn’t. I failed spectacularly at the whole "mom in a crisis" thing.

But she didn’t fail me. She’s excellent in a crisis. So we held hands—tight—for the remaining 90 minutes of the flight, listening to other passengers cry, and yes, even throw up.

Somehow, we made it. Friday the 13th, 2023. We landed. And we made it to my grandma’s service. We ate pineapple upside-down cake (her favorite) and celebrated this “ordinary” woman in a standing-room-only ceremony.

She wasn’t ordinary at all.

So, I promised you a PSA. Here it is:

Please, please, please wear your seatbelt on a plane. And if you have a baby? Buckle that baby in. In their own seat. Securely. I get it—your baby will probably cry. They’ll be uncomfortable. Other passengers might give you the side-eye. It will frustrate you to no end to keep them strapped in like that.

But trust me: if you happen to be innocently flying through the air, and some Greek god decides to take out his frustrations on your plane, there is no way you’ll be able to hold on to that baby.

I couldn’t even keep track of my phone or the pillow on my lap—they ended up in the galley (you know, the service area in the back of the plane, past the bathrooms). That’s where anything unsecured could end up. It’s just physics.

And for context: my “baby” wasn’t a baby at all. She was 21 years old. And thank goodness, because I totally forgot about her in my moments of contemplating my survival.

And both of us have said, time and again, how glad we were there together. Because had we experienced that flight alone, neither one of us would have believed the other’s retelling. It would’ve sounded like pure exaggeration. It couldn’t have been that bad, right?

Oh, but it was.

Yet today, I still fly (she doesn’t). I love going places.

Like, just for example, if you were to invite me to your home in the south of France or Costa Rica? I’ll show up, bells on.

But let me tell you: the second I feel that turbulence start to rumble, I glance out the window, expecting to see a giant Greek god looming there—and I hope, with everything I have, that he’s having a good day.