The One Good Thing About Airports

With my family's history of successes and failed attempts at flying standby on various occasions, airports and I are not as close friends as we used to be. I never had a problem with traveling but now I'm becoming one of those people. You know, the ones who complain about all annoying aspects of the industry. The lost luggage, the long waits and security lines, the crappy food, small seats, obnoxious neighbors who want to strike up conversation and don't know when to stop. I could go on. HOWEVER, today while waiting for our luggage to appear on the conveyor belt in the Baltimore airport, I witnessed the cutest thing that left me with a small piece of hope and a feeling that maybe not everything about airports is bad.

The scene is this: A father, gleaming look on his face, walks briskly amidst the crowd and bends down on one knee to meet the rushing child who springs forth into his father's arms at exactly the right time in the perfect moment of reunion after a long absence. You have seen this happen in movies before, and awkwardly on reality TV shows where the mom/dad accidentally knocks heads with their kids or something like that. You think "Oh, that didn't look as perfect as it does when scripted ... " But let me tell you, seeing the joy in the young boy's face and the complete enthusiasm with which he leapt into his dad's arms so tightly was one of the happiest, purest things I have seen in my life. It was made all the better that the timing was perfect and the whole thing flowed smoothly as a river - they even fit the stereotypical American family. Dad wearing khaki pants and a short sleeve button down tucked in neatly (must have just gotten out of the office at work) meeting attractive wife of, impressively, 4 children that she was able to tote all around the airport because they were so well behaved. Who knows if they had been separated for a week, a month, perhaps a good chunk of a year. All I know is that dad must have missed his kids a lot, and the love in that family was flowing all over the luggage claim when his little boy (the rest were girls) ran straight into the biggest hug of a lifetime. Laugh all you want and think I'm a sucker for love stories, but my eyes were watery at the end of this whole exchange.

Needless to say, despite the number of painful goodbye's that have occured in airports, there are an equal number of happy hello's, and this was just one exquisite example to represent them all. My storage tank of warm-and-fuzzies is now replenished to full and will remain that way for a while.