yesterday i found out that my sister's vacation turned into a not so vacation.
the part of the world she was in was hit by a cyclone. it's been an ordeal
for everyone in the family. she got the worst of it.
today she got into lax. there was a bit of confusion as to where she was
going to emerge but once we figured that out my dad, with his bluetooth
in his ear stood right at the yellow line and waited for two hours.
he didn't budge. his toes were flush with the inner edge of the line.
i fell in love with him.
my mom sat down and waited. she knew it was going to be a while.
she played it cool. she said that the people that were coming
out were dressed wrong for fiji. she said that my dad is
getting slow.
i sat with her.
i went out to smoke a cigarette and kept an eye on my dad.
he was in a tan vest.
i went inside and bought a bag of chips. combos.
i sat down and shared some with my mom. seven
have 175 calories. she thanked me for putting
the phenomenon known as combos into the
vernacular.
leave it to you. thanks.
people started coming out. i got up to take
a look. she sat there. my dad started looking
around to see where we were at. i noticed
my mom got up and went to the railing at
the absolute entrance to the terminal.
i stood there in the middle and waited.
some girl came out and her face lit up
and some slick fella had a big yellow
sign that said, "i'm looking for the
most beautiful girl in the world."
it was huge.
there was a commotion. clapping.
they're getting married.
i started to tear up. it was pretty
1980's romantic but i thought
that something like that isn't
natural and i wondered
what the watched on
television and how
long she had been
gone.
my heart started to get the best
of me.
i stepped back and looked at my
dad who wanted to be the first
face she saw.
i looked at mom and saw that
she wanted to be the first
person to see her.
transparent. overtly.
as much as i wanted to be in both
places i knew that this was theirs
like my place was mine.
mine was in the middle. watching the whole thing
go down. in my own space i sat there
and waited to see everyone
happy.
