I stare out the windows of gate 43 and wonder when that feeling, that sense will leave me. The feeling of
loss of
what could have been - although, naturally, if it could have been it would have been.
Every airport gate, every half abandoned terminal now has that odor, that sense of her leaving. Turning around, walking briskly toward the gate, a quick shovel of her boarding pass- then no more. No wave, no last glance- it was both cruel and efficent. It was a clean getaway. After she left I had a hour wait for my flight. So I could just stand there and watch the plane move away from the gate and taxi away. Then gone. Leaving only the empty concrete, the rusted baggage carriers and little splotches of spilled fuel . Not much of memorial.
There have been both years and numbers of leavings since that time. Buses and cars and trains and just exit doors. But none seemed so final, so terminal as that day. So it stays with me, returns to me whenever I fly.
I hope that one day I can look out those tall shaded glass and only see the jets and the little trucks- zigzagging across the tarmac, looking for their home.