I awoke in a panic. It wasn’t even 5am and we’d only been asleep for a few hours. I was thinking about Simon’s flight over to India. Up to that point I’d been saying how “big” and how “scary” it was that he was doing this… but in truth I believed it to be just a long, boring, safe experience for him. Scary if a flight is delayed or a connection is missed. Scary if there’s inordinate turbulence and no one to talk to… But in truth he’ll either get there, or he won’t. The flight will deliver him to me in New Delhi, or it’ll go down. There’s not a lot of in-between in airplane travel.
But this morning I found a new fear: what if something happens to me while he’s en route? What if I’m fine and ready when he gets on the plane, but sick or hospitalized (or dead!) by the time he gets there. What, in other words, if I’m not at the airport to meet him. This sweet, brave, exhausted boy arriving in crowded, crazy New Delhi with no one, nothing, no clue.
Holy shit.
The more I thought the more worked up I got. This plan is insane! We can’t go through with this. What was I thinking?
Melissa woke to my fidgets and sighs and, despite this, summoned a well of kindness and clarity beyond any that I could expect to demonstrate at 5am (no “can’t we talk about this in the morning?!”). She helped me through the details of my panic until we’d come up with solid plans and backup plans, contacts he could carry, knowledge he could prepossess…
We were able to go back to sleep.