A holiday wish for the young man who robbed me. I am grateful for his lessons | Opinion
You almost broke me, 2022.
Another emotional roller-coaster year for Florida brought a deadly hurricane, distressing midterm elections and, for me, a bittersweet family exodus from the state to saner places.
Yet, it was a dying lizard that brought me to my knees — and into the hands of a thief.
Still ruminating over a column taking issue with a mass child killer avoiding Florida’s death penalty, I spotted that morning an emaciated lizard in my family room. I don’t fear the critters, not even when I find them tucked in a shoe, and this one looked particularly radiant, a silver streak running along its back, as if decked out in sequins like fabulous Wynwood queens.
I resolved to save this lizard, no matter what.
But the reptile turned down my open-door offer and hid under the elliptical. I took off the rubber boots I was wearing for yard work and went after it, banging the boots against both sides of the exercise machine.
Wouldn’t budge.
I tried again with all my might — the momentum turning my socks into roller skates on the tile floor, hurling my body onto the elliptical. As I tried to break the fall, I went head first into the heavy storm-proof door, knee twisted and banged up.
Wheelchair assistance
A week after a $1,500 trip to urgent care — lots of icing, Motrin and writing with my leg elevated — I had to travel across the country.
As I limped and rolled bags to the Delta counter at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, an employee appeared with a wheelchair. “Uh, uh, honey, I got ya’!”
I seldom admit I need help, but my knee was on fire — so, I got tagged for the rest of my multi-city flights as needing wheelchair assistance.
That’s how I came to be delivered to what seemed like a friendly, funny young man at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport after gate backups delayed my flight and I missed my connection.
He picked me up across from the counter from where I got a new boarding pass for a later flight.
He asked about my injury. I told him the lizard story, self-conscious about how I, who had only months before climbed mountains in Norway, found my downfall at home.
First mistake: I revealed more than I should have. But my other attendants had been first-rate, professional, safe. He told me he was working hard and traveling to Fiji. I felt comfortable, connected on a human level and made a mental note to give him a big tip.
Then, he started wheeling me crazily through packed concourses. I had to hold on to my backpack for dear life.
“Wee!” he would say with childlike enthusiasm.
At some point, he mercifully stopped. “You look uncomfortable. Why don’t you give me your bag to hold? It’s supposed to go here,” he said, pointing to the back of the wheelchair.
I stupidly gave it to him.
When we got to the packed tram we needed to take to my gate, he dramatically pronounced: “No, no, we’re not going in there to get COVID and monkeypox!”
He rolled me into a small elevator in a secluded area, and after we settled in, I heard and felt ruffling behind me.
I turned around: “What’s wrong?”
“Oh my!” he shrieked. “I think I’ve lost my cellphone!”
I commiserated.
“Found it!” he said when the doors opened.
At the gate, he parked me, not upfront where he’s supposed to, but among outlying passengers and tried to leave right away. I called out: “Wait! Your tip!”
Most people around me were looking when I opened my wallet — and discovered that all my $20 and $10 bills were gone; only two singles left.
The money had been there when I opened my wallet to give the ticket agent my driver’s license.
Lessons learned
Clarity is the darndest thing. The pain of realization can choke you. No wonder our first reaction is to avoid it, preferring denial. And when I looked into his nervous eyes, he knew I knew. He was an excellent groomer, but not a good actor when caught.
I asked him to call security, but suspecting he wasn’t going to when he walked away, I got up and wobbled to the gate agent and reported the theft. Two security people in plain clothes interviewed me twice before police came when I was about to board my flight.
Weary, I decided to leave.
Delta agents assured me there would be an investigation. If guilty, no one wants him around to do this again. But thoughts of the young man have haunted me. I don’t want his life ruined. I prefer an ending with lessons and purpose for both of us.
Truth is, I have forgiven his thievery. I hope he’s in Fiji for the holidays — or happy at home with loved ones.
For me, travel is like prayer, the way I connect to the source. In flight, I’m at heart the same giddy girl in the white Camaro heading north on U.S. 27 to the University of Florida — for the first time, free.
But this young man has shown me how others see me now: old, gullible, vulnerable.
Maybe even a bit uppity, lugging around the navy-blue Brighton backpack bought on sale, but still expensive, and wearing a thick silver ring purchased from an artist in cold Bergen who was closing her store and trading it all in for a juice stand in the Mexican sun.
It would be too easy to conclude that the airport employee who robbed me is the only villain of this year-end story. But, as in love, it takes two to collide.
Thieves lurk everywhere. Some rob us of our most precious possessions: time, energy, sanity. Some let us off cheaply: a $160 betrayal.
As for the lizard that started it all, apparently, it survived my fall.
No body found. Nobody dead.
