Week 44: down the road 
This particular walk down the road (and a long drive) led us to our local international airport. We set our alarms to wake up before the dawn to drive to greet our relatives that had endured a long flight from the UK. The sky was dark as we made our way up the highway. My girls drove off in one car and my sister’s car followed with my mum and myself comfortably seated and ready for a noisy trip of chatting to one another (as if we hadn’t talked to each other for a lifetime) after all we were all excited to see my Aunty and her son and his partner. Two weeks is not long enough for a holiday across the world, a holiday to spend quality time with family you haven’t seen in forever. It never really matters that the time past between visits, we pick up where we left off. 

Once we got to the airport we met up with my girls as we’d parked in different carparks and made our way to terminal 1 – arrivals A. We had our own scene from the famous movie – ‘Love actually’ with hugs and happy tears as we spotted them walking down the ramp to the entry space. My daughter Rach had offered to go to the bathroom with my mum ( who can’t seem to manage a cup of coffee without saying ‘she’s busting’ only 1/2 an hour after consuming it, plus her sense of direction is woeful and we laugh about that – so if she went to the bathroom by herself we’d have to send out a search party to get her back) so they missed the arrival by 2 mins. 
It was turning into a beautiful crisp summer morning as we made our way to our cars. As it was early we decided to show off our beautiful Sydney coastline with a bite to eat at Coogee beach. We ate breakfast in style with a beach view back drop as we dined on our yummy delights – nothing beats a poached egg with smashed avo and lime on sour dough to start the day. Once we were full of food and catching up conversations we headed on a 2 hour journey home with our visitors. 

Visiting the airport is either happy or sad. Happy at arrivals and sad at departures. That’s just the way life is. You can’t have one without the other. We’ve had more than our fair share of sad since the passing of our beautiful brown eyed boy Jacob, but we are trying hard to continue to see the happiness that life can still bring our way as we live it in ways that would make him proud, honouring him in everything we do. I’d like to think that Jacob is just travelling to all the places he’d wished to have visited in his lifetime had it not been cut short. I’d like to imagine that I’ve just dropped him off at the airport to await a fantastic trip, give him a big bear hug and kiss and wish him well on his way as any proud mum would as they send their kids off by themselves for the first time. 

Quoting Ellen DeGeneres wise words about roads….seemed to fit with what I have written in the paragraphs above – ‘You just have to keep driving down the road. It’s going to bend and curve and you’ll speed up and slow down, but the road keeps going.’