Missing Them

I packed my deodorant and a lot of other things. I fumbled through the dark of the house and out the door early on a recent Sunday morning but not before whispering goodbye to a half-awake Jennifer and then standing at the edge of Hannah’s bed to watch her sleep.

Soon I was on my way to that vast field of concrete and steel known terrifyingly in some circles as the Atlanta airport. Next I was at the ticket counter then through security and waiting for the call to board.

The call to board my flight though was still some time away.

There I sat waiting, checking my email every few minutes but mostly watching people and how they act and interact with others. Soon, I was joined a few seats away by a couple who were probably in their thirties with a young girl, who was probably six or seven years old.

Having just left my wife and daughter a few hours earlier for this trip I must admit I found my emotions a bit raw. I could relate to so many of the things going on with these three. The little girl had a small suitcase she planned to carry onto the airplane. It was decorated with Disney princesses, the same Disney princesses Hannah talks about often. The husband and wife tried carrying on conversations about the business of their life together but their daughter would often interrupt those discussions just like Hannah does when Jennifer and I have to talk sometimes. I watched the mom try to get her daughter to eat just like I know Jennifer would be trying to do if in the same situation. I watched the daughter beg her dad to let her play games on his phone and then watched her work to get his Sprite away from him even when the mom showed a disapproving glance in their direction. I knew each motion and emotion, each action and reaction.

This couple and their daughter sat directly behind me on the first leg of my journey. I didn’t get to observe them but from time to time I could hear them talking and laughing with one another. I found some comfort in hearing their interactions and it made me miss what I have with my wife and daughter, even if I had only left them a few hours earlier.

The next day my business took me to a panel discussion involving five students. The students ranged from high school age to one lady in her forties, who was a grandmother. A couple of students were high school students and the rest were working to expand their education beyond high school. The five, four female and one male, were chosen to appear on the panel because they had reached a certain level of achievement in their education. At one point, each was asked what obstacles they had to overcome to get to the place they were now. Four of the five mentioned some issue with family life. For two of the five, a single parent household meant challenges to overcome, for one the issue was having parents who weren’t very supportive and for the other the issue was being in foster care and having to constantly move and never really having a sense of stability.

Strange, isn’t it, how various things like people randomly crossing your path or even distance away from your loved ones, often provide clarity to the things in life that truly matter? Pairing the couple and their daughter from the day before with the five students and their stories I recognized in a very crystal-clear way how important parents are in a child’s life. Even though my work brought me to this place so far away for a short time I understood my most important work was ongoing as Hannah’s dad and Jennifer’s husband.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, full of business mostly. I did walk on the beach. I went to a farmer’s market one evening and ate some local food. Each night though I retreated to my hotel room, did a little work from there and depending on the time and the time difference either phoned or sent text messages back to home. I looked forward to those few minutes each day. When they were over I relived those moments but somehow they still came up lacking. They always come up lacking because no matter how advanced the technology becomes it can never replace actually being with those you love. As my trip inched closer to it's conclusion, I would tell myself to hold on as that moment when we would all be together would happen again even if I had to walk from California back to Tennessee.

Anticipatory Anxiousness

As I write this work will soon take me out of town for a few days. This happens with my job on occasion. It is a necessary thing for how I earn my living. Still, I am rarely thrilled with the idea of being away from those I love for any length of time.

This trip will take me to central California for five days and nights with the getting-there and the getting-back-from-there taking the better part of one day apiece. At this moment it is still a handful of days away from when I leave. Even now the trip and the things I need to do for the trip swirl in my head like a whirlwind that won’t settle away from any other one thought about anything else for very long.

The idea of seeing somewhere new is exciting and something that will be enjoyable. It’s just the getting there and the getting back that get to me. It starts with an early morning ride to catch a shuttle which will then transport me to the airport all the while hoping the shuttle driver is sober, sane and safe. It’s the airport that I loathe. It’s the standing in line to check in, it’s the security check which often leaves any rational person with very little dignity, it’s the wait-to-board while bored, it’s the finding where to sit and storing carry-ons, it’s the hoping and praying that you won’t be seated beside a drunk, a loudmouth, a just-married couple, a soon-to-be divorced couple, a person with a weak bladder, a person who doesn’t quite understand how important personal space is to some of us or someone who for whatever reason does not believe in using deodorant. It’s the getting off the plane, it’s hopefully retrieving luggage in one piece, it’s finding your way around the airport to find a way out of the airport, it’s the taxi or shuttle ride to the hotel, it’s the hotel registration process, it’s the actual business that has to be conducted. It’s the getting there and then it’s the getting back because before you know it, you reverse the whole scenario and find yourself on the way home.

It is enough to make me want to wish the time away so that it was all over before it even starts. That is something though I find myself doing with enough things in life already.
It’s the impatience I show when I can’t wait for a train to pass so I have to make a demolition-derby-dash to beat a red light to a side street in hopes of outrunning the train to cross the tracks before it gets to the next street. It’s the threat of wintry weather that makes me long for summer days then when summer comes it’s the longing for cooler days and maybe a passing snowflake or two instead of enjoying each season and each day for what they are. It’s my being incredulous to someone when they don’t understand what is so obvious to me but still so mysterious to them.

Some might say it is a good thing to not be satisfied with how some things are and I would agree. Still, knowing what those things are and when to act on them rests on a fine line and recognizing them and what to do with them can only come from wisdom. And that is something I understand also. Still, I struggle. I recognize the time each of us has been given is precious. Even if I forget, people often tell me how time shouldn’t be wished away. Usually the ones telling me this are people with more varied life experience than I have. Still, somehow sometimes it all doesn’t sink in how the wisdom often residing in others should be heeded because the voices telling me this speak from happiness or regret or guilt or some other place but spoken with a voice soaked in experience. And if all that doesn’t drive the point home even more, those often speaking from experience top it off with sharing how time is a rare gift that keeps giving and giving until one day, sometimes with little or no notice, it is all gone and when it leaves, it is forever gone.

Still, here I am putting together lists in my head about what I need to do for the trip ahead. Anxious, a bit nervous, all the while watching time tick on and creeping closer to when I have to go.

I hope I remember my deodorant.

Where I'd Be

Not long ago, a group of us were talking and the guys were asked where we would be at that moment if it weren’t for our wives. Each response was different but in general we all agreed that place would not be as good a place as where each of us were at that moment.

I have given that question some thought from time to time since then. Sometimes when I do I think about the past and where I’ve been.

I can remember being a teenager wanting to taste the freedom that was so close but never really realizing until later in life how the freedom we inherit comes as a complicated gift. I can remember being with people in places and times I just knew I was meant to be for a much longer time than what transpired and how all those times now seem like a mere matter of moments, long gone. I can remember being a struggler, fighting some battle against myself or against someone and later realizing what a waste much of that effort really was. I can remember being on top of the world or so I thought before understanding life is full of valleys and mountains and how one day I stood at the mountain’s peak and the next day I sat crumpled on the valley floor.

Where I have been, where I might be and where I am are three different places. Two of those three sound very lonely to me now because I would not be where I am now without my wife, Jennifer.

Although I often write about our daughter, Hannah, in this blog, you should understand that the true hero of our lives is her mother, my wife, Jennifer. She and I have our own story, as all couples do. That story is not like Romeo and Juliet or Samson and Delilah and thank God for that since Romeo and Juliet didn’t end well, and well, neither did Samson and Delilah. When it is all boiled down, we’re just a boring couple by the standards set by TV and movies and romantic novels but we are a couple who look forward to growing older together. It’s practical and realistic yet rather romantic in it's own way, even if it's just to the two of us that feel that way.

I still find myself at times baffled at how complicated life can be but I share that now with her. I find myself sometimes bewildered at how quickly time passes and sometimes how the people we know are gone just as quickly but I share all that now with her. At times I still find myself struggling hard against things and she is there to remind me I can pick and choose the struggles that come my way and how I deal with them. And when I am on the valley floor, she’s there with me just as she is with me when I am on the top of the mountain.

Where would I be without her? I’m not sure. I am certain though that the place where we are now is the place I always want to be.