If you read this blog regularly (all six of you), you know that my oldest, Emma, went to Italy last fall to study. You also know that when I “sent her off” to college I didn’t really send her very far—only about 40 minutes away, and that we saw her an average of three times a week. So putting her on the plane was a far bigger deal.
9/11 in many ways split our history into two parts. Those over the age of maybe 25, who ever met someone or sent someone off at an airport, can probably remember going all the way to the gate. Those under 25 can hardly comprehend this fact. How could TSA possibly screen all those people? Well … they didn’t. There was no TSA. And no one was screened. People wandered in and out of airports willy-nilly. Because no one had ever thought of turning an airplane into a bomb. But someone did, and it changed everything. At least in airports.
But I digress. We drove Emma to New York. It was cheaper than any ticket from Balto or DC and gave us a few extra hours with her. We had just enough time to check her in with the airline and her coordinators, buy her some euros and
some coffee before we had to send her into the labyrinthine passageways of TSA. It was after 11pm on a Tuesday, so it was pretty empty, at least in this hall, even for JFK.
I watched as she wound in and out of those hated Tensabarrier security lines, and then moved down the long hall toward her gate.
She didn’t look back. I’m not sure what I would have done if she had; I was fighting back tears already.
The hallway she hurried down was one hundred times larger, brighter and noisier than the one outside my hospital room twenty-one years ago, the one the nurses carried her up and down trying to guess what her first name would be, since we only knew Noelle at that point.
The best thing about this hall was that I would welcome her home in it in four months later.
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Yes, I remember the before/after of 911. Feeling your pain…our 21 year old lived in the dorm her first 3 years of college, but was close enough to home that she drove back and foeth frequently. She now lives at home, and has absolutely no desire to travel to other countries!
Our youngest is 17 and graduating from high school this qeekend (on Mother’s Day). She will be living at home and commuting to a local college as qell. Not looking forward to the day when we truly have an empty nest!
I hope your graduation was a joyous celebration!!
Love this. So funny, thank you. I too, have stood in that place. I feel your pain.