Hallmark Card

I am so excited!  Someone FINALLY came to Connecticut to see me!!  So I am at the airport the other day, sitting in my car waiting for her to come out.  I am doing one of my favorite things...people watching.  Have you ever sat in an airport and watched all the love?  You can actually see it!  Okay, so you are thinking how can you SEE love.  Love is a feeling and can’t be seen, but it can be expressed.  The airport is a perfect example.

So I am sitting in my car and I see these people standing on the curb waiting for their rides, and cars pull up to pick people up.  I felt like I was witnessing a Hallmark card.  I am tearing up watching people!!  So a van pulls up in front of me and an old man (by old I don’t just mean oldER than me, I mean old...70).  He climbs out of the van and almost runs to the other side.  Then I see his sunshine...a radiant old woman.  She is beautiful, with a scarf around her frail little neck.  He runs to her and puts his very thin arms around her.  They stand there for a while like that...just hugging.  Then I realize they are crying.  So naturally I start crying.  So here I am in my car, watching this movie scene fall apart before my eyes, and there is a tap on my window.

Okay, let’s talk about the tap for a minute.  It wasn’t really a tap, it was more like a bang.  I am a jumpy person, so here I am...knee deep into a Lifetime movie and I hear this bang which of corse scares the shit out of me.  I let out a yelp and then realized it was an airport cop.  I rolled down my window and he said, “Are you picking someone up?”  No, I just had a couple extra hours and thought I would spend them sitting in front of the airport watching people come and go-”yes.”  

“Well, you can’t sit here.  You can only stop if the person you are picking up is standing here, I need you to move.”  

“Yes, SIR!” I said (with the most outrageous voice I could).  I pulled away, just as the old man was putting his wife’s bag into the trunk.  So I looped around the airport imagining their story.  They have been together since high school, they have four kids, 84 grandkids, and she flew to visit her sister who is very sick.  Here she is coming back home to her husband, and she finally feels she can unload all the stress that has been on her shoulders for the week she has been next to her dying sister’s side.  She feels his arms around her and just lets go.  In reality, it probably wasn’t the old man’s wife, it was probably his mistress...but for the sake of my sanity, lets stick to the Lifetime movie theory.

This time I go around to the drop-off section of the airport.  I figure I can sit here and wait without being harassed.  So I pull by the curb and wait.  In front of me is a convertible with the top down (they must think they are in Texas).  Inside sits an older man and a younger girl.  I can see them talking to each other.  Then they get out, and I realize it is father and daughter.  He grabs her and hugs her so hard that he lifts her off the ground.  She is just laughing at how silly her dad is acting.  Here comes the water works.  Why is this sad?  This is sad, because he is probably sending her off to college.  He has raised her on his own for 19 years, and now he has to let her go.  She is an adult and he has to release her into this jungle of a world.  This to me is very sad.  I can see he is trying to make light of the situation when you and I both know, as soon as his little girl walks into the airport he is going to break down and cry.  I look around my car for a tissue to hand him.  BOOOM (on my window)!  Are you freaking kidding me?  Don’t you jack wagons have anything better to do then to bother me and my Lifetime movie marathon??  I didn’t even bother rolling down the window, “Yeah, yeah” I yelled as I pulled away to make yet another loop around the airport.  

Thirty minutes and 64 loops later, my own Hallmark card arrived. I am so lucky to have friends that come visit me even though I live so far away.  That in itself is enough to make me cry.  God has blessed me!!