Four days ago, I dropped my entire family off at the airport. I left my family’s lives in the hands of a pilot and a co-pilot, two individuals I have probably never met and who I will probably never meet—two strangers. It’s an odd thing to truly think about. Who knows what they left at Home? Who knows what they were carrying with them? Do they have kids? Is one of those kids in crisis? Drugs? Bad Grades? Puberty? Did one of the pilots have an argument with a friend or spouse? Are they in the middle of a divorce?
Two strangers, I am blindly trusting them to carry my three most cherished treasures to a place relatively far from Home.
I stood in the Lobby and waved to Annie and the girls as they went up the escalator. I continued waving as they stepped off, I waved one more time as they disappeared around the corner and down the hall to their flight. I wished for safe travels, I wished for a pilot and co-pilot who were having good days, I prayed that no souls with evil intent were boarding that same plane, or any plane anywhere for that matter.
I turned to leave and decided instead to wander for a minute. I was in no hurry, I had to work in ninety minutes and work is a three minute drive. Stay At Home Parents tend to live a pretty Home-centric life, rare is the opportunity to people-watch; rarer yet is the opportunity to people-watch without interruption!
Airports are unique places. I see veiled vulnerability everywhere. Everyone is carrying their entire lives with them in a rolling suitcase. Lose that suitcase and they lose everything. There are inexperienced travelers who are checking the time constantly, constantly checking their boarding passes, fretting over the “ten-thousand things”. There are the seasoned travelers, the ones who can fly the equator with their frequent flier miles. They look tired, bored, indifferent. But somewhere in their brain is a nag, a tiny thing that is constantly being pushed back down, it’s saying, “Will this be the one? Will this be the flight where I suddenly discover prayer?”
Everyone has a veil of indifference, but behind that veil they are all carrying stress and varying levels of misery. No one really actually wants to travel these days. They might be excited about their destination, but they are not excited about the journey. There are the checkpoints, bag scanners, metal detectors, grumpy TSA agents. All of this trouble just to cram themselves into a pressurized flying petri dish. Everyone has left someone or something behind. However, that veil gets lifted every time you see a parting or a reunion. That indifferent expression cracks and there it is, a tear quickly dabbed up or the face lights up in a smile as they wrap their arms around a Loved one. At an airport, a place defined by departures and arrivals, by goodbyes and welcome homes, you see the facade publicly melt away. You see a person as they truly are, at least for a few seconds. Everyone is either missing someone or is anticipating seeing them again. I’m missing someone right now, I’m missing three someones right now. Later today, God willing, I will be seeing them again, I cannot wait to hear “Daddy!” again.
Back to people watching! There was a little boy who was hugging a man, I’ll presume he’s his Dad. As the Dad started walking away, the boy mentioned something about a souvenir. Dad’s…an inventor. He’s on his way to present the prototype for his laundry-folding machine. (laundry folding machine? I can do better than that. I’ll get back to him another day.)
A little bit ahead of me is a young couple holding hands, they are both wearing very new and very serious looking backpacks. I am going to write them as newlyweds, going on an adventure honeymoon. Ten years from now, he’ll have lost some hair, she will have gained a couple baby pounds. They will still be gorgeous in each others eyes. At the supper table, a child who is currently a spark in a dream to be realized will be a kindergartner, and that kindergartner will be asking to hear the story about how Mommy got poison ivy on her butt—again, the story never gets old. The experience that will create that story will be happening in forty-eight hours. It won’t be very funny until this November or December.
A very tall and severe looking gentleman I saw earlier was walking past me in the opposite direction. I wrote him as a high level VP of a big company. He’s flying out somewhere to fix the mess his (bleep!) sales team created—heads are going to roll. He looked at me and smiled (which took me off guard, he broke character) he told me I have incredibly cute daughters.
Scratching out that story, time for a re-write (still discombobulated. Characters typically don’t talk to me). Now…he became a Grandpa six days ago. He’s going to meet his grandchild for the first time. We must have been his template. He must have been watching me, Annie and the girls earlier and placed his son, daughter-in-law and grandchild over that template.
Here’s a couple, they’ve been married seven years. Unlike the other couple, they are not holding hands, but they want to…they’re pretty sure they want to, neither is ready to give in yet. They’ve been having a rough time of it, privately they’ve both been considering divorce for six months now. They still Love each other, they miss each other. They are both hoping this vacation will help them find each other again, I’m hoping so too. The child they’ll conceive on this vacation will go on to cure cancer. But that kid’s going to need both parents together in order to pull it off. If they divorce, the kid will become an auto executive, haunted for life by a lingering feeling of being unfulfilled, something else was supposed to happen. Mankind’s counting on you two! Make that marriage work!
There’s a whole troupe of college-aged students, probably taking a break from school to see the world. Wise choice, do it while you can kids. The one with the beard will become the Godfather of the skinny kid’s yet-to-be born child. In seventy years, the skinny kid will be talking to the gravestone of the bearded one, “remember that time in college when we all went to…” He’ll then leave a bottle of Zima at his grave. There’s an inside joke there, it hasn’t happened yet, and you and I aren’t necessarily privy to that story. But let’s enjoy watching those two laugh about it for the rest of their lives.
There was an old couple I saw earlier. Both were well-dressed. Once upon a time, flying was a thing to be dressed up for. They appear to remember that era. She was seated, watching both of their bags. He stiffly ambled up to her and handed her a chocolate muffin. She didn’t say anything, neither did he, but I detected a faint “Thank You, I Love you” and “My pleasure, I Love you too” pass between them. After eleven years of marriage, Annie and I are barely on the cusp of having that level of communication, it’s going to be pretty cool when we attain that skill!
What did these characters see as they looked at me? They probably weren’t all that impressed, then again, he didn’t dress to impress. He was wearing Carhartt Pants and a threadbare hoodie sweatshirt. Chances are he’ll be wearing a tool belt later in the day, he probably has rough hands and will smell like sweat and machine grease by day’s end.
Let me try this guy: he just said goodbye to his family. In a couple days he will be lonely, not despondent, but very ready to feel the embrace of his wife and daughters again. He will have failed to complete all the Home projects he was planning on doing. He has been living on TV dinners and misses his wife’s meals. His oldest daughter drives him up the wall with her head in the clouds, his youngest daughter drives him up the wall by seeking and finding trouble everywhere.
He misses being driven up walls.
That’s not very fictional. Is it?
I hope all my characters get to where they are going, I hope they all do what they are meant to do, and I hope they all come Home safely.
I’m especially counting on my non-fictional characters getting Home later today.
I’m writing this in a silent house (not totally silent, Rossini is playing at low volume). Silence is good when you are hearing impaired. But this kind of silence is different, it’s a lonely silence. Eating an entire snack on my own without interruption has lost its novelty, so has watching movies with questionable language and content. Leaving the bathroom door open and leaving the toilet seats up is now just irritating me. I am no longer enjoying this quiet, peaceful and sort-of tidy home. I need my girls and their high-pitched chatter, I need my wife walking past and winking at me. I need some scattered toys to nearly step on.
Later today, the best three quarters of me will be back. I can last that out.