At 1 am, not sleeping, I got up and walked towards the light brightening up the room from under the door. Hey you–what else can I do to help?
She sent me to bed. An hour later, she went too.
We all got up at dark o’clock for Oakland Airport across the Bay and the upper edge of the sun just started to appear over the eastern ridges a little before we got to our exit.
One very tired Michelle threw her arms around me with a fervent “I love you, Mom!” as I got out at the curb a moment for that. It was so early. The place was not crowded; Richard had pulled in at the end of the airline’s lineup, a bit of a distance from the skycaps, and as a matter of fact it looked like it was the only airline gathering passengers at that hour.
Michelle in her fatigue tried to get her three rolling suitcases going towards those skycaps. The littlest kept flipping on her. Maybe she could stack them. Then she had twice the flipping. This just isn’t working! I said to Richard as I got back out again, You may have to circle around; he, affirming my choice, said, Sure.
The traffic control guy nodded his approval at my helping her in her struggle, I was told afterwards, and together we rolled those suitcases to where she needed them to go. I turned, expecting to see the Prius gone, but no; there he was still.
She and we had been silently wished Godspeed on our way by a man wearing bright traffic stripes who knew travel.
Lisa, bless her, picked her up at the other end.
We got home in time to take a nap before that early meeting of his.