What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen at your job? For one flight attendant, the answer to that question is as puzzling as it is heartbreaking.
A reader wrote into AmoMama with a deeply strange tale about an abandoned baby, a scared mother, and a very confused airline employee. Let’s dig in.
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The story is absolutely bonkers
AmoMama editorialized the tale from one of its readers in a narrative fashion, laying out the entire situation as a short story. In it, a young soon-to-be mother, Rhonda, found herself in a sticky situation after her controlling father discovered she was pregnant with her boyfriend’s child.
She was adamant the child would be born
Despite her father’s rather clear anger and intense disapproval, Rhonda decided to proceed with the pregnancy, informing him that her late mother would have supported her if she were still alive. She moved out with the understanding that she could not return until the child was surrendered to an orphanage.
Her boyfriend was less than helpful
Peter, the child’s father and Rhonda’s boyfriend, turned her away when she arrived at his house. He was ill prepared to be a father and not at all interested in helping Rhonda out in any way. He dumped her on the spot.
The shock came at a bad time
According to the story, the trauma of the back-to-back rejections caused Rhonda to go into labor. A kind woman, Angela, noticed her in distress and took her to the hospital.
Angela told Rhonda she reminded her of her own daughter, who she had once kicked out of her own house upon discovering her own secret pregnancy. Her daughter passed, and Angela had lived with the guilt ever since.
Rhonda wanted to get out of Texas
Angela decided to aid the distressed mother. She arranged a ticket for Rhonda to leave Texas, telling her that it would help ease some of the guilt she held over rejecting her own daughter. Rhonda agreed, and a few days after having her son, she got on a plane bound for New York.
Rhonda was panicking
Though she was finally leaving Texas, worries over her ability to be a good parent still plagued Rhonda. She was about to be alone in a new city with no job, no home, and a brand new baby to care for.
In a shocking move, she chose to leave her child behind on the plane in the hopes that someone more able to give him a good life would find him.
Enter the flight attendant
Rhonda abandoned her son with nothing more than a note placed next to him. The flight attendant, Lincy, came upon the days-old baby as she did a final sweep of the cabin. The note with the baby explained that Rhonda was too poor to care for the baby, and instructed whoever found the note not to look for her.
She wrote that she hoped whoever found the boy would care for him better than she ever could, and hoped that they would call him the name she chose for him: Matthew.
Rhonda didn’t have it easy
It took her nearly 10 years to finally get some stability in her life. She regretted leaving her son behind, and thought about him frequently.
Now, however, she was in a position to actually care for him, and she desperately wanted to track him down and try and form some kind of relationship with him.
She managed to track Matthew down after 13 years
He was reluctant to hear her out. Rhonda told him the tale of her being kicked out by her parents, of being homeless in New York, and of her fears of being a young mother. Lincy, the flight attendant, had adopted him and raised him as her own. She encouraged Matthew to give his mother another chance.
Now 23, Matthew and Rhonda have a solid relationship. Guess some stories do have happy endings!
