The anticipation leading up to the face to face reunion was the most incredible, amazing feeling I’d ever known. I had no clue how anxious I’d be. And how nervous I was not. I thought for sure I’d be terrified, but I wasn’t worried about any of that.
The weeks stretched on and I thought it would never get here. I kept having dreams, or more like nightmares, that she would call and say, “I’m sorry I cannot make it”. It didn’t matter the reason she wouldn’t be able to come, but my faith was so faltering during the time, I just felt sure she’d cancel.
But that didn’t happen.
In fact, the day finally arrived. I remember it well, as if it was yesterday.
It was a chilly, brisk, dry November morning. November 22, 2003. The leaves had changed colors and many of them were already dead. But I wasn’t really looking.
The drive to the airport seemed unusually long, and as I sat in the passenger seat with my friend driving and my children chattering away in the back seat, I watched the planes overhead.
It was too early for her to arrive, so I knew she wasn’t on any of them, but it brought me back to childhood when I would walk through stores and search people’s faces for someone who looked like me. I did the same thing looking at the planes, wondering if she was on that plane, or perhaps that one. But I knew she wasn’t.
It was busy in the airport, and there were people milling around everywhere. And even though I still knew it was too early for her plane to have landed, I still found myself scanning the crowd, searching for her face.
As soon as I was certain she had landed, I began to get teary eyed. I couldn’t shake it and wanted nothing more than just for her to be standing in front of me.
We had agreed to meet in baggage claim and watching the crowds come down the stairs to claim their suitcases was excruciating.
And then, all of a sudden, as if she had just magically appeared, there she was, walking towards me from about forty feet away. It wasn’t her face I saw, or anything else – it was her eyes. We locked eyes and there was no mistaking it.
I was laying eyes on the person who gave me life.
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