The Honorable Tammy Duckworth
Yesterday, I flew across the country for the first time in—what for me has been—a long time. The last three years have been a travel marathon, but since I was called home for a family emergency two and half months ago, I’ve stayed close to the nest. And gladly so. But, recently things have evened out, so I took the plunge. I decided to come to Washington, D.C, for 48 hours to attend a conference where I knew I would see friends and mentors and provocateurs. Plus, I would get the chance to present some exciting preliminary research with some of my very favorite compagnons d’armes. All good.
But, despite my travel hiatus and tremendous gratitude for peace and well-being at home, I still fly like I fly. I am fundamentally—very fundamentally—an introvert. For a four-hour flight, I pull out six times the reading material that Howard Berg—the epic speed reader—could skim in a week. I hypnotize myself into an anxiety-sick sleep during takeoff and then bury myself in books, magazines and work until I stand up at the arrival gate. Essentially, I tuck myself under Frodo’s cloak of invisibility and pray that I don’t get stuck in inextricable small talk.
Of course, there are times when my best efforts don’t work. There was the middle-aged woman whose cat mewed incessantly until I let him curl up in my lap and the elderly Welsh grandmother who was going “home” for the first time in 40 years. There have been long flights full of boorish, drunken business travelers and anxious mothers with whom I have cried and swapped stories. But mostly not. Mostly, I hunker down and people leave me alone. And I, them.
Yesterday, between Portland and Chicago, I finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World. I admired it for its unflinching tightrope walk between faith and doubt, I cried when Taylor described her husband kneeling to seek her father’s blessing in the last hours of his life. But, more than any of that, I was moved by her idea that it is our right—and obligation—to bless that which appears before us, by her stance that none of us is too unholy to raise up the broken world.
It was under that spell that I ran across the Chicago airport and boarded my ORD – DCA flight at the last minute. I rushed on to the plane to find myself assigned a middle seat, and –naturally—my seat mates were already on settled in, seat belts fastened, final sections of the Times spread wide. I apologized profusely, made myself tiny, pulled out two books of essays, a new book of poetry, a magazine, and my laptop so that I could power it up as soon as the little bell chimed. The man sitting on the aisle was about my father’s age—bird-boned, wire-spectacled, professor emeritusish.
The woman next to the window was younger, roughly my age, wearing combat fatigues, hair pulled back in a short ponytail. Hi, hi, I mumbled. The professor emeritus and I fell asleep during takeoff, but I roused myself to make sure I got my Diet Coke before I turned to my insane to-do list.
I made a little small talk with the woman in the fatigues. She was reading Time magazine. The steward stopped by and said: Thank you for your service, young lady. She smiled back and replied, Thank you. I kept my head down but made a little small talk with her about the turbulence and the flight delay. I kept wanting to say thank you to her, too, but I was too shy, and I wasn’t even sure I agreed with unexamined gratitude to those in uniform. Because while there is much to be grateful for, there are also things to question in a free society. But I did practice what I had read about in the first leg of my flight—I practiced silent gratitude and the blessing of strangers. Inside, I awkwardly prayed for the dapper professor and the lovely young soldier. Outside, I smiled and murmured inanely as we lurched toward the nation’s Capitol.
Just as we were descending into Washington, a man across the aisle leaned over and said Tammy, are your bags in the overhead? He was wearing a Congressional pin. And, while I did not recognize him and still do not know who he was, I suddenly recognized her. The woman sitting next to me was Tammy Duckworth, the freshman Congresswoman from Illinois- 8, the Army Lieutenant Colonel who lost both legs in a helicopter crash in Iraq, the brave candidate who won her seat after defeating an incumbent who accused her of “politicizing” her service , her bravery, and her sacrifice. Yes, that Tammy Duckworth. The Lieutenant Colonel Duckworth to whom I do owe a tremendous debt of gratitude for her service as a brave warrior, as a trailblazer for women, as a fearless candidate, as a member of Congress.
And yet, yet. I was still me. I didn’t thank her. I didn’t even acknowledge I knew who she was, what she sacrificed, what she means to me and my daughters. I kept my head down, immersed in my tangled silent prayers and awkward self-consciousness. All I could manage as I packed up my stack of books and papers was a stilted, Have a good week.
But thankfully, writers have do-overs. Here, I can say this: I have thought of you, Congresswoman Duckworth, many times since yesterday. I admire your bravery, your risk-taking, your strength. I am indebted to the country we both love, and I am inspired. I am inspired to utter my gratitude and my blessings aloud. I am inspired to look up from my book next time, clear my shaky voice, and say: Ladda Tammy Duckworth—and all those like you—thank you for your service.
