I’m in seat 12A, about 10 hours in flight – so far. Six more to go, more or less … and then there’s the connecting flight …

Thai Airways flight 795. LAX to BKK. Departing from one of the world’s worst airports (Tom Bradley would NOT be happy with the chaotic terminal that bears his name) – to one of the world’s newest and best. I’m excited about seeing Bangkok Airport.

If you read my story, “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” you know about my fondness for airports from a very young age. I have a grainy photograph of me on the tarmac at MBS (Midland/Bay City/Saginaw) with a United Airlines plane in the background. I was 13 and had just completed my first flight. I’d spent four weeks of my summer vacation with my cousin, Karen, and her three rambunctious boys in Virginia Beach.

She bought me a pink dress for the flight. I got a haircut, too.

Aside from the bad haircut, I don’t recall much about that flight experience except that I dreaded coming home. It was not to be a happy homecoming.

I had been washing the dinner dishes at Karen’s when my Dad called.

“Your mother is in the hospital.”

“Why?” I asked.

“She had a mastectomy.”

“What’s that?”

The only part of his answer that I heard was “breast cancer.” I remember dropping the phone onto the kitchen floor and running to the bedroom.

A week later I was flying home to an overwhelming sadness. Mom had never been a particularly happy person, but whatever joy had been there when I waved goodbye from Karen’s Winnebago was gone by mid-July.

July 12 was my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary. Before the diagnosis and surgery, someone organized a party. Never one to disappoint, my mother went along with the plan. A stack of cards littered the coffee table. About half were shiny, silvery “Happy 25th Anniversary” sentiments, and the other half were “Get Well Soon . . .”

Photos taken at the party show her smiling weakly. My Dad, sitting next to her, looks shell-shocked. God – what a dreadful celebration. So glad I missed it.

Fast forward – 40 years later. In 12A, six miles above the Pacific at more than 500 miles per hour – thankful that nothing about that first flight experience ever diminished my love of airplanes and airports.