The Departure Gate

Our eyes encountered one another for the first time, hers a set of bright blue, mine clouded with a mist of pent-up longing. Over five weeks I had waited to meet her, to hold her, to kiss her chubby cheeks. Most importantly, to tell her how beautiful and precious she was. In  anticipation of this event, I had imagined a number of scenarios, one of which included a lucent circle that would surround our two forms, hers and mine, linking the past with the present, love and forgiveness, grace and acceptance. A generational embrace. The pain in my back bowed down to the toothless smiles, the gurgles, the innocence. Gazing at her fresh face, I tried hard to imprint upon my mind the round nose, the swatch of light brown hair reaching for the ceiling, the smooth flesh. The current distance between our homes remains vast, and babies change quickly. Will she remember the sound of my voice? As we readied to return home, from Virginia to Oregon, my mind spun backward, to a farm in Wisconsin, to a grandmother who taught me how to thread a needle, to play gin rummy, to milk a cow. And as the engine roared and I clamped my seat belt tight, a photograph snapped across my brain, displaying an image of my own mother cradling our newborn daughter in her arms. Rays of slanted sunlight from the picture window danced across their bodies, spilling across the daffodil-yellow blanket under my daughter, illuminating my mother's graying hair, her beaming smile, and my daughter's pristine face. A halo of sorts. The tender memories eased my fears, massaged the lingering doubt and I muscled up a little extra faith. As the departure gate grew further away, the airport a mere speck in the landscape, and the plane cruised above the clouds, traversing the electric blue sky, I played with the memories. I heard the sound of my grandmother's high-pitched voice advising me which  card would be perfect to lay down. A contented sigh escaped into the crowded airplane. There is no distance between love.