Day 205

The poison ivy is not much better today, and in a really bad place which chafes, so she walks around the meadow slowly with the black dog, noticing things, seeing flowers she usually runs right over, still feeling vaguely miserable, knowing how many days she has to go before all the inflammation and discomfort is gone, the majority of the time her daughters are here, so inconvenient for her body to let her down like this! 

Later she thinks that you just have to get over yourself with this, although no one really understands poison ivy unless they have had it, which not another soul in her family has! 

So she and the eldest child and the eldest child's boyfriend go to the airport to fetch Jess, who was delayed in Amsterdam, but who is supposedly on the same plane she would have been on the day before.  They wait and wait, crying at the old man in the wheelchair whose daughter greets him with love, weeping when the 10 and 12 year old girls race up to their dad, the youngest throwing herself on him, leaping up with abandon, hanging on, her long body too big really, but not caring.  The older one more circumspect, reserved, butting her head under his arm, so sweet.  And the couple kissing for minutes at a time, coming up for air and then kissing deeply again, all they want to do it get to the nearest bed and know one another all over again.  The little grand-daughter put on her feet to run to her grandparents but who decides they actually look a bit scary and instead locks on to her dad's legs and won't budge.  And the woman next to us, who runs up to a girl and takes her into her arms, the girl smiling, then stepping back as they realise that they don't actually know one another at all, the younger one resembles her niece but is not quite right, the 'niece' a bit non-plussed, thinking, "This is a very friendly country!" and a bit sad to walk away from this sweet family.  And all the emotions float on the air and are imbibed by the unsuspecting empathic women like Em and her mother, so that their hearts are full and overflow out of their eyes in salt-water.

And eventually each passenger has been hugged or kissed or slapped on the back, and taken off to cars and buses and trains, but her little trio remains, glued to the barrier, wondering where their beloved person is.  And finally they are the only ones left, and still no sign, and their hearts sink, and they start trying to find out what has happened.  And their imaginations run to places where they have to shut the door quickly because it is too bad to think of. 

And at last, one hour and 40 minutes after they arrived, when only one of the trio is still waiting at the barrier, she walks through the doors, having been searched and questioned and whatnot, it is always the case with this child, she must look wicked or something.

And the mother flies barefoot through the upper floor of the terminal, like Zola Budd, as Stuart says, and flaps down the escalator on ungainly flipflops which you have to wear on an escalator, where she can see this tall daughter running towards her, and the escalator will not go fast enough, as she hurls herself into her daughter's arms, who holds her like a short person, which she is, her head rests on her daughter's chest, the roles reversed, and she weeps big hot tears of relief, the silly mother, but the daughter is weeping too, and they cling to one another after one whole year of no contact.  And it feels sweet.

So now there is a full house, and the table is animated at mealtime, a million conversations going at the same time, the boyfriends, coming from small families, have both been warned about so many constant interruptions in a big family, but they seem to take everything in their stride, and I like them both. 

And so we go on, and it is nearly tomorrow, and my heart is full and my smile is happy, and I could just burst into blossom, as my mother used to say.