Fear and loathing up the mile-high club

When the news first broke, I was on the high-speed rail en route to Shanghai to board a 12-hour flight to Seattle. Needless to say, an icy hand gripped both heart and mind as every conceivable fear about flying immediately resurfaced.

For the first time in many years, I was actually afraid to fly, even though my son had dismissed my maudlin messages with a "airplanes are statistically safer than cars, mom".

I know that. But in the wake of bad news, flying becomes an emotional response. On that trans-Pacific flight this week, every little tremor that shook the plane had me convinced my last moment had arrived.

Even safely on the ground, I had the hotel TV channel constantly tuned in to the news, and stayed logged on to several social media sites to get the latest updates on MH 370.

My imagination ran wild and my trepidation was fueled by all sorts of rumors and conjectures that came crawling out the woodwork.

We were all afraid, not sure if the flight had crashed in apparent fair weather, or if the plane had been hijacked, or had become the target of a terrorist attack. Debris was spotted on the sea off Vietnam. Some prankster even posted a picture of a plane that had crash-landed on the ocean.

All were later proved unfounded, and friends and relatives of the missing went back to the trauma of hoping, praying and waiting, frustrated by the inability to find closure.

Sadly, the trauma would have been less if they knew for sure.

For the rest of us who have to continue our journeys, fears old and new continue to plague us against all reason. Sometimes, though, it is those who wait for us at home that suffer the most.

"Be waiting for you to come home," my normally recalcitrant husband messaged me just before I got on board my flight, and added a heart sticker. "Safe journey, mom," my son's text message lit up the phone screen right before I switched it off.

Related: Future hazy as we count the cost of warp-speed growth

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Sidewalks and streetlights

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