Unaccompanied Minor

As I write this I sit in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport - on my way home from a head-spinning two days of airports, layovers, over-priced bottled water and kisses good-bye. It was a bitter-sweet trip bringing my munchkins to their dad and using the short time I had in town to visit one of my best friends, Shaleen. During the days, weeks or months leading up to taking the kids to their dad I typically don't think too hard about the whole situation, otherwise I'd be a wreck at the very thought of not seeing them daily. Instead, I just live in the moment - think about the time we have together, not the time we'll spend apart. This, as we all know, is an unhealthy little thing called denial. But it works best for me, as backwards as that might sound. So...in denial I'll stay (at least on this topic).

It wasn't until our final approach into Albuquerque yesterday that I struggled to maintain my bearing. It took every ounce of strength within me to keep from crying. But I managed not to bawl my eyes out (in that moment). For the kids sake. 

Today, as I sit in this cold, sterile airport, where strangers zip past each other without blinking an eye; I'm childless. I take the escalators without Owen's tiny hand holding mine. I buy a magazine and don't have little voices asking me if they can each pick out a candy. I stand at my gate and only need to look for one empty seat rather than 4. I put my earbuds in because I don't need to focus my attention onto my three little busy-bodied children. I go to the restroom and it only takes 5 minutes, not 20. On the plane I'm not offered cookies or blankets. I don't get smiles from the fellow passengers who watch as Owen performs his latest stand-up act. Nope. Instead, I try not to cry when I see a little boy wheeling his little orange and green Diego backpack behind him. I try not to stare at the sleeping baby in the seat across the aisle from me. I see a young dad alone with his two kids, no ring on his finger, and I can't help but wonder if he's going to drop them off to their mom, if he's going to be childless on his return flight home too. I wonder their story. I wonder their emotions. I wonder how he handles it. I wonder if denial works for him.

I see a group of kids waiting for the stewardess and I think to myself that those could be my kids in a few years. They are all straight-faced, wide-eyed, quiet. They don't bounce around and giggle like the other kids that are flying with their parents. They sit there looking oh-so-serious, with tags hanging from their necks labeling them each as an "unaccompanied minor." Two of the four kids get into a little golf cart that pulls up to our gate, a gate attendant hands the driver of the cart paperwork (I assume it's the children's gate assignments), talks to him for a minute and he drives off. The whole time I watched the kids not a single on of them spoke. Not even to one another. One wore a backpack as big as he was and clung to his pillow the entire time. The other just stood there, empty-handed, with a messenger bag slung across his body, not showing a single emotion. As I watch them, my eyes water and I hold back the tears the same way I held back the flood gates when I hugged my kiddos good-bye just 24 hours ago. And I realize I'm a mess. I supposed the moment you give birth and become a mother you are automatically a mess when it comes to emotions and situations involving your children. This solo flight home, coupled with watching these children I don't even know journey through the airport with no parent, only a bookbag, a pillow and a blank stare, make me never want to let my children fly alone as minors. I understand that's not feasible for most people. I understand children do it everyday. It's just that, right here and now, I'm in a place, mentally, where I wouldn't ever want my kids to fly alone. 

These kids, these "unaccompanied minors", not only do they have to travel across states alone, but they also have to say good-bye to someone and then get on an airplane afterwards. They don't get to say good-bye to one parent and then immediately have the other parent to lean on and have there as a pillar of strength when they begin to miss the parent/friends/life they just said good-bye to. Nope. Instead, they get a non-reusable necklace and a golf cart ride.