She moved cautiously forward through the security line in front of me, and she was clearly lost. I guessed she hadn’t done this before – at least, not for a long, long time.
Because I knew that look. Anyone who spends much time in airports knows that look. She kept glancing around, hesitant, afraid of missing some sign or direction, of embarrassing herself among all of these strangers. Feeling her way, trying to watch what everyone else was doing. One eye peeled for a friendly face – or some stern countenance to warn her she was doing this complicated procedure incorrectly.
She had to be in her 80s, at least, and probably afraid of flying. Or would be, when flying was all she had left to think about. For now, she was more afraid of setting off some bell or buzzer, or drawing the loud ire of one of the stone-faced security personnel working busily around her.
She shuffled forward, trying to emulate what the people in front of her were doing. It was all so strange and new. The big gray trays. The scanning machines. People taking off belts and shoes, then being told they didn’t have to take off boots and shoes, pulling computers from their bags and moving bags to other trays. The jostling and the pauses. The questions and the warnings and the directions to move here. Wait. Over there. No: here.
The security man was kind but brisk; even at 4:30 in the morning, a lot of people were piling up and crowding the conveyor belts. The old woman forgot to put her purse in a tray … then realized she need to place something in her purse. She started through the scanner too early, forgot to lift her arms – something beeped.
I tried to be of some help, translating for her when the guards spoke too quickly, or mumbled. Pointing the right place to stand, the right time to go. Finally, I followed her through to the far side of the scanner, where they waved the magic wand all around her as she watched, wide-eyed, fully expecting to be sentenced to life for the little pendant she’d forgotten to take off her coat.
I reached over and pulled her purse and bag off the conveyor belt and handed them to her. She thanked me, and turned to move hesitantly out into the concourse. Then, as I moved to follow, she paused and smiled shyly back at me. She hesitated.
“This is my first time to do this,” she said, blushing. “I’m 85 years old. And … I’m on my way to be married.”
She giggled nervously. “Can you believe it?” she asked, a little awe in her voice. “To get married.”
She turned, and stepped out into the crowds, and the future.
I wonder if it was anything like that, for Queen Elizabeth II.
‘ve read much, in the weeks since her passing, about how important her faith in Christ was to her. About how seriously she took her vows before God, upon assuming the throne. About how conscientiously she tried to live out her faith for decades in that unrelenting spotlight, dealing with world leaders and family upheavals and the endless dictates of royal bureaucracy.
And then, one day, after 70 years as the figurehead ruler of 54 nations, with millions of subjects all over the world – she suddenly found herself at the crowded gates of heaven. Just another commoner, waiting to meet her King.
“This is my first time to do this,” she might have said. “Can you believe it? I’m on my way to bow before my Lord.”
Bet there was awe in her voice. Bet she even blushed a little, marveling at the extraordinary majesty unfolding before her. Grander, surely, than anything even she had ever seen or could imagine.
As she stepped through those pearly gates, and into the endless wonders of eternity.
Kneeling, for the first time in so many, many years, at Someone Else’s throne.
And finding, to her boundless joy, that God had, indeed, saved the queen.
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