I had a long flight that I somehow was not seated next to my wife. We were annoyed but it was a full flight and so we just sat and dealt with it. Once we started to get into the taxi part of the initial taking off, this lady that was seated next to me was clearly having a panic attack.

I asked her if she wanted to talk, she said she would but didn’t really say anything so I started to talk and asked her a lot of closed questions because she clearly didn’t want to talk. About halfway through the flight she opened up a bit and told me she was on the way to her mothers funeral and she hated flying and would only do it because of this specific situation.

When we were about to land I asked her if she needed a hand to hold and she did. And when we were done, I let her know that I was happy to meet her and that I hope her return flight is better.

I have wondered what it might have looked like to the other passenger in our seating area.