Yesterday’s Window #1…The Journey Begins

August 9, 1994

So there we sat, criss-cross applesauce on the colorful carpet at the Portland International Airport. It was around two in the morning and I was SO tired that my eyes had to strain past the dryness in order to try to catch a glimpse of the new life we were awaiting. It was so quiet there, like a ghost town, the ramp was so empty, but still we watched and waited. Then, some glimmer of activity. Yes, a person became a few and soon a whole crowd of people filed down the far away hallway toward us. “Do you see them?” I asked this man sitting next to me.

This man, still really a boy himself but I didn’t see that then. To me, in that moment in time, he couldn’t have been more of a man. The mere smell of him nearly made me crawl out of my skin, and I would often take advantage of that by burying my face into that perfectly shaped part of his neck that was made just for me, and inhale him deeply. The first time we made love I actually cried as it dawned on my soul that this is who I had been waiting on…and then the question to his soul “Where have you been and what took you so long?” Although we were only twenty-one, it seemed as though it had taken an eternity to find each other…the reunion of the halves of our whole.

Now, two years later, we were waiting together for the arrival of two little boys, his brothers Rex and Daniel. I had never even laid eyes on them but I loved them already simply because they were a part of him. And as the numbers reversed themselves and the crowd walking toward us became a few and then none, there was still no sign of them. Still a few more minutes passed and finally there they were, looking so small in the distance, walking on either side of the attendant who was acting as chaperone. I looked again at him and he flashed me a grin and we rose to our feet. We were about to embark on the journey of our lives and, in all reality, had no idea of the challenges that we would face in the years to come.