Sometimes We Get Another Chance

On Tuesday, I took my daughter to the airport.

Eight months ago, I did the same thing.

That first time, she was leaving for Australia. I had pictured the goodbye long before we got there. My husband and I would take her together. We would get her checked in, have a little time, hug her goodbye, and watch her walk through security.

It did not happen that way.

My husband was sick and could not come. Los Angeles traffic was terrible. By the time my daughter and I reached the airport, there was no time to park, no sitting together, no lingering over the fact that she was about to move to the other side of the world.

I hugged her at the curb.

And she hurried inside.

I wrote about it afterward because I was surprised by how much the goodbye bothered me. Not the leaving. I knew the leaving was going to hurt.

It was the moment itself.

I had built an image in my head of what saying goodbye to my daughter should look like, and reality had given me something entirely different.

Eventually, I came to understand that there was nothing wrong with the goodbye we had. It was rushed and imperfect and nothing like what I had imagined, but it was ours.

I thought that was the end of the story.

On Tuesday, my daughter left for Australia again.

This time, my husband came with us to the airport.

We were not late.

Even the New York traffic cooperated.

The airport was not crazy.

We had time.

It is funny how ordinary those details sound. That day, they felt like gifts.

We sat together. We talked. We lingered because we could. There was no frantic checking of the clock, no car waiting at the curb, no feeling that the moment was getting away from us before we had even had a chance to be in it.

Then it was time.

I hugged her.

And then I hugged her again.

And again.

Finally, I stepped aside and let my husband have his goodbye.

And then I hugged her one more time.

She had tears in her eyes.

I held mine in. I always do.

I have learned to let her have the goodbye without asking her to carry my sadness too. My tears can come later. They always do.

The clock was ticking. It really was time to let her go.

So I did.

And I watched her walk away, waving until I could no longer see her.

Somewhere in those few minutes, I realized what was happening.

I had gotten another chance.

Not at the same moment. That moment was gone.

Eight months have passed, and the daughter I hugged on Tuesday is not exactly the daughter I left at the curb in January.

She has lived on the other side of the world now. She has navigated airports and unfamiliar cities. She has built friendships and routines and a life that exists thousands of miles away from ours.

I am different too.

In January, I had to trust that she could do all of that.

Now I know she can.

Apparently, knowing how to live on the other side of the world does not prevent you from becoming completely worked up about your seat assignment on an airplane.

After she went through security, my phone started going off.

She texted me.

Then again.

And again.

For the next few hours, there she was, this capable young woman traveling halfway around the world by herself, texting her mother about her seat and whether she should ask to change it.

Some things change.

Some things, thankfully, do not.

She is going back to a town she knows now, but to a school that is completely new.

And this time, I know something else too.

In December, my husband and I will get on a plane, and somewhere on that side of the world, I will see her again.

There is another hello waiting for us.

Still, when my husband and I got back to the airport parking lot, I cried.

Of course I did.

I have cried after these goodbyes before. I just wait until she cannot see me.

This time, though, I was not alone.

My husband was there.

That mattered.

Two days later, I am still sad.

I miss her.

Knowing she is exactly where she wants to be does not make me want her here any less. Knowing that this is what growing up looks like does not mean I have to enjoy every part of watching it happen.

But underneath the sadness, I keep thinking about what happened Tuesday.

Most of the moments we wish we could do over do not come back. The conversations, the decisions, the things we wish we had understood sooner.

We cannot go backward carrying everything we know now.

But every once in a while, life brings us somewhere familiar.

Not back to the same moment.

Just another chance to meet the next one differently.

On Tuesday, mine looked like an airport.

It looked like having my husband beside me this time.

It looked like having nowhere else we needed to be.

It looked like having enough time for one more hug.

And then one more.

Until finally, I let her go.

I miss her terribly.

But I got what I wanted.

I got the goodbye this time.