I wish it had been a dream

It was a travel nightmare. I got up at 3 am to be at the airport early but my flight to Chicago was delayed 3 hours and I missed my connecting flight. After I got to O’Hare, the next available flight was cancelled. There was only one more flight that day but I had to wait 5 hours and it was still snowing. The woman behind the counter thought it might be cancelled as well.

I crossed the street to the Hilton, looking for a quiet spot to get some work done and kill 4 hours. Ok, actually I was trying to find a hot toddy or Irish coffee. As my luck would have it, the bar was under renovation. I did manage to talk them out of 2 gin and tonics, and by “talk them out of” I mean I had to talk them into selling me the 2 small drinks for $10 each. By the time I’d finished the second one, I was feeling a little warmer and decided to find a different spot to get some work done.

As always, people wanted to talk to me. I discussed the weather with traveler after traveler. After about 2 hours, a gentlemen said if his flight was cancelled he was going to just hop a shuttle across from the hotel. I inquired a little more and before he had finished explaining how the shuttles work, I was shutting down and packing my laptop. I had already missed the first viewing and IF I somehow made that last flight, I’d still miss most of the second viewing. I trudged across the street in 12 inches of snow. The next shuttle would get me there in time for the last viewing and was only $34 one way. I bought the ticket and stepped outside just as the bus pulled up.

I was standing there, with my arm extended, ticket in hand, when it suddenly dawned on me… My checked bag with all my clothes was still at the airport. I stood there for several seconds with my arm out until the driver asked me, “Well, are you getting on the bus or not?” Oh hell, I can buy underwear at K-Mart. I was still pretty rattled as I rode the bus for the first hour. I called my office for assistance in locating my bag. I wasn’t sure if they’d take my suitcase off the plane if I didn’t show for the flight. I worked continuously for the rest of the 2 and a half hour bus ride. The good news, I was only 7 minutes late for the viewing.

I had hoped to never have to talk to 90% of the people in the room ever again.

My adopted father died last week. I feel bad that he died… mostly for those that have to go on without him. I had only spoken to him once in the last 20 odd years. As an adult I discovered that he was a weak man who did things he didn’t really want to do because someone told him to.

It wasn’t that I disliked him. I just had no time for a man who pretended to be my father.

That statement would break my brother’s heart. He loved the man as a son should, faults and all. But I was just a girl that a man felt forced to adopt when he married my mother. My brother was his only natural child. I never knew growing up what the difference was but I knew there was a difference. All the family on that side treated me slightly different and I felt that too. Not one of them ever attempted to contact me when I left home at 18.

To tell the truth, I hadn’t given them much thought either over the last two decades. I didn’t send them my wedding invitation, birth announcements, photos, birthday cards, graduation notices, Christmas cards and neither did I receive any.

When he first got sick and I realized he wouldn’t beat the leukemia, I talked to my brother and told him I probably wouldn’t come home. I didn’t want to be a distraction to something that should be about his dad, not my sudden return home after 22 years.

My brother was so bereft in the moments and days after his dad died that I changed my mind at the last minute. He needed me and I’ve always said funerals are for the living, not the dead. So I trucked home to hold his hand and sooth is soul. I’m glad I did.

I bet they are still talking about me.

ps. The trip home was no better. Temperatures of -11 with windchills of 25 below, more flight delays, missed planes and lost luggage.