Airport Kindness

The night before I left Florida to come home to CA I received a text message from a friend: “How do you stand missing Dan so much???? I get to see (insert friend’s fiancé’s name here) 4 days a week but it still hurts on the other 3!!! :/ ” How do I respond to this? How do I explain the hurt, ache, and emptiness I feel in a text message? I replied with this: “I don’t have a choice. We don’t have a choice. We just do the best we can. Oh, and I cry a lot.” Her text message made me think. It made me try to find words to answer her question, how do I stand missing Dan so much? I don’t think I “stand” it. More like I endure it. Like I told her, it’s not something I have any choice about. It’s not something that I can fix, or that Dan can fix. I can’t explain to someone the physical feeling of missing someone. I can’t explain to her that even though we only slept in the same bed together for 2 months before he left, that I can’t seem to sleep without him now. How do you put worry into words? Or frustration? Or love?

Traveling back from Florida was rough, to say the least. I got up at 5am (Florida time) and Steph dropped me off at the airport around 6:15am. I went to check in, and my flight was cancelled. Instead of leaving at 7:45am, connecting in Dallas and arriving at LAX at 1pm I was leaving at 11:40am, connecting in Miami, and arriving at LAX at 4:35pm. Awesome. I called Steph, but she didn’t answer. I went through security (got chosen for the ‘body scan’ thing) and found my gate. Then I had 5 hours to burn. My I-pod was only half way charged, so I bought a charger for it and read some magazines for a while. There was an article in one of my magazines about elderly people greeting troops as they return home in an airport in Maine. The article and pictures made me cry, like so many other things in life have done over the past several months. I kept being really teary for a while. I know he’s coming home soon - really soon - but he’s not home yet and it’s still really hard.

At 10:30am I went and sat at my gate again. There was an elderly couple across from me who were waiting for the same flight. A guy in an Army uniform came and sat next to them. The woman leaned over and shook his hand, slipping him $20. This made me teary again. He thanked her and they talked for a bit while I tried to eavesdrop. The Army guy (Thornton) was on his way home from his deployment in Baghdad. Our flight switched gates, and I went and asked about it. They said our flight was 20-30 minutes late, which wasn’t good because we only had an hour layover in Miami. I told the couple and the four of us talked on and off for a while. They were heading to LA for a Bible Conference at Pepperdine. They were worried they would miss their shuttle, so I offered to give them a ride if they needed one. They were very grateful for that. Finally, we boarded our plane. It was tiny, and I fell asleep as soon as we were in the air. I didn’t wake up until they overhead said we were going to land. The elderly couple were sitting behind me, so we talked about how to get to our next gate quickly. We had to wait for a shuttle to take us to the terminal. We walked very quickly and were the last ones on our flight to LAX - literally. We were very glad to have made it.

I stayed awake long enough to buy a sandwich and eat it, then I went to sleep. I must have slept 2-3 hours, because I woke up and only watched the first hour of an hour and a half movie before they told us to put our stuff away for landing. We landed at LAX at 4:45pm - perfect for LA traffic. I found the elderly couple at the baggage claim and asked if they needed the ride. They were very grateful and said that they would make their shuttle. I called the parking place and went to get my shuttle to my car. I drove home on Highway 1 and didn’t hit too much traffic. I got home at about 6:50pm. The girls were excited to see me, which made me feel good. I unpacked, did laundry, sorted our mail, returned emails, showered, uploaded my pictures, and hung out before going to bed at 10pm. I’d been up since 2am CA time, but I couldn’t sleep. You’d think after 4.5 months I’d be used to sleeping alone again. I finally crashed out around 11:45pm.

I probably won’t ever forget the elderly couple in the airport or Thornton, the Army guy. The kindness and compassion they showed him touched me. Their gratefulness at my offer for the ride touched me. I never expected that my boring 6 hour wait in the Jacksonville airport would affect me like it did. I’m glad my original flight was cancelled. I hope that someday I can show kindness and gratitude to someone like that couple did to Thornton. I hope my husband receives the same kindness when he is traveling home to me in two weeks.