Today Ed and I put our 11-year-old grandson Louis on a flight alone (as an unaccompanied minor) from London to Newark, with a plane change in Reykjavik. This photo is a selfie we took at the airport.
Louis turned around to face us just before going around the corner of the concourse to disappear from our sight. With a big grin on his face, he waved at us. “Bye, Nani.”
I tried to stop the tears.
The three of us just spent seven days touring Europe together, visiting five different countries.
Have you ever seen Madrid, Venice, Milano, Zurich, Paris and London through the eyes of an 11-year-old? You should try it sometime! I’ll write more about our time together in the next few blog posts this week.
Right now I have the goodbye in my heart.
I’ve always hated goodbyes.
All the way back when I was a little kid in Paraguay, and I’d have to say goodbye to my parents every Sunday as I boarded the bus to go for the school week into Asuncion, 81 kilometers away from their leprosy station. I hated it.
I remember a hot summer day in 1963. I was 11. “Sei gaot – be good. Goodbye,” Dad said in his native Low-German, as he pushed me in against the bulging human mass onto the bus that was to take me to the capital city. As the diesel engine started up, everything jostled side to side and I fought to not lose my bearings, standing with my feet far apart for stability. I looked out through the dust-covered large flat rear window of the bus just in time to see Dad’s station wagon disappearing over the hill behind us. Tears spilled from my eyes and landed on my shirt. Through my tears, I kept staring at the place where Dad’s car had disappeared from view. A strong magnetic thread seemed to pull my heart along behind that brown station wagon, even after it was out of sight.
My lips silently mouthed, “Please, Daddy, let me stay home.”
I’ve always hated goodbyes.
I remember another hot summer day in July of 1988, when my 15-year-old daughter Shareen walked away from me on the concourse at Kennedy International Airport. She was about to board a flight to travel alone to Sevilla, Spain, where she would study for a year.
Shareen turned around to face me just before going around the corner of the concourse to disappear from my sight. With a big grin on her face, she waved at me. “Bye, Mom.”
Just like her son Louis did today.
“God be with you,” I whispered through my tears today, much as I did back in 1988.
Marlena doesn’t like to cry. “They will make my eyes puffy,” she says. But the tears come when she is hurt, sad or is in a state of joy.
I like the kind of tears I saw her shed today. They are an open vulnerable sharing of her true caring self without a pretense of toughness or sophistication.
How do you deal with your tears? Do you let them out when they reflect your true feelings?
Lately the tears have been flowing rather freely. I think it’s a combination of memories and getting older. I had a similar experience when our youngest child left to go to college in California. So far from our home in Kansas. We decided to get a donut at Winchells before she took me to catch my flight home. I tried to be brave for her, but I couldn’t stop the flow of tears. Would I be okay without her until she could come home.
It was one of the hardest things I’d ever endured.
But also one of the sweetest things you’ve experienced, right? Love.
Although bittersweet, what experiences you are sharing!! Even with the tears.