The last daughter left today and Tim almost had to hold me up with the blow of it. I turned back at the top of the airport terminal escalator, like Orpheus, and saw her small figure below, moving slowly through the line to the security gate. To realise that I wouldn't see her, wouldn't hug her, laugh with her, or touch her smooth face, for a very long time, that she lives too far away, left me grief-stricken. I don't want to live the remainder of my life on separate continents, it is too tragic, too heart-searing, every goodbye is harder than the one before, the time together too fleeting.
Matthew asked how it was when we arrived home, and Tim told him that it was so sad that the whole airport cried.
I was hugged by my sons, pressed to their hard chests, so unlike my daughters'. They gave me tea and sympathy, their faces smiling at me across the table, making jokes, life goes on.
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