Air travel after losing Natasha
I remember how as a small child I used to look up at the sky in wonder and excitement when a plane passed overhead, my future grief and loss thankfully hidden behind those soft white clouds.
My heartache from losing my daughter to a food allergy is a path I will journey on until the day I too leave this earth. Natasha was 15 years old when she suffered a severe allergic reaction on a British Airways flight, 2 days into the summer holidays in 2016. Her father was taking her and her best friend for a short 4-day break as a special treat to the South of France, but she went into anaphylactic shock whilst onboard the plane. She experienced multiple cardiac arrests as a junior doctor, her father and later French paramedics fought to save her life with CPR.
At Stansted airport as I waited at the Gate to board a plane, desperate to get to Natasha as fast as I could, my phone rang. My husband’s voice choked and unfamiliar told me I must say goodbye to Natasha - he put the phone next to her ear, she had just minutes left to live so I had to hurry.
I was late, too late.
Today, the severity of my loss and grief, waxes, and wanes. This new life, the one without Natasha, where I am still somehow living and breathing air even though my precious child is not, took some years to accept. There have been many personal challenges and one that was very difficult to overcome was travelling by air. Travelling from Heathrow Terminal 5 where Natasha travelled on that terrible day has been particularly hard, and I find myself retracing all her last steps in my mind.
Once I’m on the plane, I look at the gangway, the narrow space where I have been told Natasha lay unconscious. I cannot bring myself to use the plane toilets, where her father injected her with 2 EpiPens and she said her last words to him. I consider the hold in the belly of the plane, where there is room for one coffin; we discovered this fact when we brought her back from France a week later. For the duration of any flight, all I want to do is to get off as soon as I can, and when I do, I can finally breathe again.
