good byes....

This is one of those rare emotional posts....

we ate fro-yo at the Yogurtland in the airport to ease the transition. they had insisted on being there a full two hours early, not realizing that check-in took three minutes and there was no one in the security line. so we used the last 27 minutes of free parking to sit quietly, chat, and pretend it was just a normal evening. they took off their heavy jackets and placed them gently in a pile for me. strawberrys and chocolate gone, they pulled on backpacks and lifted computer bags onto their shoulders and we walked towards the security entrance.

i did my best to pretend i wasn't going to fall apart. i hugged and loved quickly, clutching their winter coats, watched them walk a few steps through the coveted special people security line and might as well have ran as fast as i could to the parking lot so no one would see this grown woman start to cry. i was hindered by my own need to keep looking back---but so far as i saw, they didn't turn around. a mercy for me really. at first it was just a single tear that streamed down and i made my way through the tunnel to the parking. i made the horrible mistake of burying my face in the jackets and inhaling the smell of love. my lip quivered. one at a time on the 4 mile drive home the tears came down.

walking into the apartment, still clutching the jackets like a life raft, i saw their boots. my whole body heaved with sobs. the dog curled up beside my crumpled body and waited me out. after what felt like an eternity, probably just a few minutes, i heaved myself up off the floor, washed my face and sent a loving text. i searched for some piece of them that might have been left behind and contemplated sleeping in their jackets with one of each of their boots on my feet.

they texted and told me they had just met an iditarod musher, headed home to Chicago for a shower. and so their adventure continues.