Welcome home…good bye!
My 13 hours at home are now over and I’m back at the airport heading off on my next trip. Those 13 hours were priceless; it’s impossible to put value on the very intense, but high quality time with the family. Several things of note:
— When we pulled into the driveway, my now 14 year old comes bouncing up to the car window and quickly asks, “notice anything different about me”? Every father knows that you better come up with an answer quick, and fortunately she had her hair brushed a different way leading me to see that her hair was shorter than normal. I recognized the hair cut because of her question and the different way of brushing, so I was the good father that let her know I liked the way her hair looked. Like most guys though, if she hadn’t prodded me with the question, she would have been really disappointed when I didn’t notice!
— About an hour later, my oldest daughter and her husband joined us for dinner, and she waddled in seemingly so much larger than 3 weeks ago when I left on my trip and obviously showing the child growing in her belly. I’d be lying if I said she had the “glow of motherhood” that comes for some with pregnancy, but she definitely is a beautiful young mother-to-be demonstrating the maturity and strength of character that she’s always had and that I know is soon to be passed on to her daughter (of course, she’ll have to overcome the incredible spoiling that comes from her really cool grandmother and grandfather).
— At dinner I also had the chance to talk with my 20 year old son who just completed his first year of college and is focused on becoming a journalist. I talked with him about doing some form of internship with the the local newspaper this summer, and of course, that’s a bad idea because that would be work and it’s obviously not time to work yet. I talked with him about needing to write if he wants to be a writer, and in an answer no different than me when I was his age, he indicated that you either can or can’t write and he feels he already knows how to write so he doesn’t need to practice.
— And I got to spend time with Denise, talking about the schedule for the next 2 weeks which I’m not allowed to miss and catching up on the 3 weeks of missed activities. We’ve learned over the last 25 years how to maximize the limited amount of time we are together – this time was no different.
My wife gave me the title of this one when this morning she popped off with “welcome home, good bye” as we headed out the door together. One of the things I can always count on is her being at the airport when I come up the escalator in Denver – that’s a welcome that’s impossible to explain if you haven’t become custom to it, and it’s one that never is taken for granted. I’ll be gone only a couple of days this trip and I’m already looking forward to coming up that escalator and seeing her once again.