She met the idea of him, and she gave me a way to carry him, and then she was gone, and every time I strap that carrier on I am, for a moment, being given something by my mother again.

She was the one who taught me the thing that was failing me on that plane and the thing that would save me by the end of it.

She taught me patience — endless, bottomless, keep-the-peace patience, the patience of a woman of her generation who absorbed a great deal so that the people around her would be comfortable.

And she taught me, too, late and almost as an afterthought, watching me swallow one unfairness too many at some family dinner, that patience has a floor, and that a person who never finds the floor will be walked on until there is nothing left of her.

I had my mother’s patience strapped to my chest that morning, warm and breathing.

What I had not yet found, boarding that plane, was the floor.