A Woman On The Airplane Cried While Reading My Book

Yesterday, a woman on the airplane cried while reading my book.

I was flying from Tampa back to New Jersey and this older woman sat in the seat next to me. It's difficult to explain but something about her just seemed genuine and sweet. At one point, I looked cold and she offered me her jacket to put on my chest to keep warm.

I rarely keep copies of my book on me but I happened to be traveling and still had a couple of copies for people that I wasn't able to meet up with.

I looked over at her and she had no headphones and no digital gadgets, so I asked her if she enjoys reading, to which she replied yes. I handed her a copy of my book and told her she could read it if she'd like.

She immediately began reading it and her head proceeded to nod in agreement with the statements I was making in the book. Then she made it to Chapter 2, which I would argue is the most emotional chapter for anyone to read.

It's emotional because I go into great depth discussing how it felt as a child to not have my father involved in my life. I described the disappointment I had when I wanted my father to show his care for me like any other boy would & he never came through for me.

I go into great detail to describe how missing fathers impact boys and girls in different ways but typically result in, what I would call, being lost children in a world where they need their father to become their compass which guides them to success.

After she finished that chapter, I asked her what she thought of it. I could tell she was emotional reading it as she found it hard to find the words to express how she felt about it. I looked into her eyes and they were watery and then tears came down her cheek.

She would proceed to tell me that she is an immigrant from Hungary that has been living in the United States since the early 1980s. She said the reason she was emotional was that she didn't grow up with her father as well and who I described as the lost child was her.

She told me how the impact of World War II and Communism took men out of the home to fight wars and then the mothers had to become the single parental figure for their children which greatly impacted their upbringing.

We would proceed to talk about her family and her love for her children and grandchildren. From the outside, we looked like we had nothing in common but my book connected with her on a deeper level and allowed us to share a meaningful moment together.

I wrote my book for many reasons but encounters like this exemplify the essence of my book. While it does discuss race, I bring it back to the ultimate point: the human experience.

We're all humans who experience occasional great moments mixed in with trauma that we think no one will ever understand. I wrote this book to connect with people like that woman, to unite us all, and to get back to understanding the essentialness of family.

We're often told by powerful people that we could never understand each other unless the person looks just like us but this is a lie created by people who want to control us, not unite us. Our superficial differences are just that: superficial.

So, I implore you to use your voice, look past the superficial and attempt to find what you have in common with people rather than what you have differently.

Choose commonality; choose humanity.

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