I'm leaving on a jet plane.

... but I do know when I'll be back again. I'm going to visit a sister and her kids, sans one (also in college). I am currently doing laundry -- for the first time since my son left for college -- really!! (Yes, I have that many pairs of undies and yes, he does generate a lot of laundry.) I am a homebody and don't particularly like to travel. I really dislike preparing to travel -- the packing, getting the house ready to leave, setting up care for the dog, making sure that bills are paid, plants are watered, etc. etc. etc. Once I get on-board the plane, I will relax and enjoy my trip. Up until that time, though -- I'm always on the verge of cancelling my plans (not really, but I feel like that). You know how ridiculous that is? I felt this way when my daughter and I were getting ready to go to Paris! Of course, those days were much more complicated. I was leaving a very ill husband with my 16 year old son for a week. There was a lot more burdening my mind and heart than packing for a week of international travel.

Since that trip to Paris, I think I have only flown once -- to a brain tumor conference the winter after David died. I've taken smaller trips by car with shorter stays away from home. I don't like to be away from home.

We live about 6 miles from our little, wonderful airport. When we decided, quite seriously, to move out of northern Virginia, we had to do some recon. David needed an airport that would get him everywhere he needed to go. I was skeptical about this airport. Certainly it had to be too small -- just a little puddle jumper runway with some obscure destinations. I was wrong! Our airport is served by at least four major airlines and does the trick. We do live under one of the flight paths, but it's not awful because there aren't many big jets slamming into our air space. Every time I hear a plane flying overhead, I think it's David coming home.

He flew out and in just about every week. Usually departing on a Thursday or Friday and returning on a Monday or Tuesday. Weekends were not family time in our household. That got really old. When we found ourselves with a family weekend, we sometimes tried to plan something special like a mini road trip -- but often just relished the time together here on our beautiful land in our cozy home. Since David travelled so much, travelling when he didn't have to wasn't his first choice.

I remember when my dad travelled a lot. We hated it. When we lived in New Hampshire and then, again, later when we were in Pennsylvania, my father's employer was not anywhere near where we lived, so he was away a lot. Breezewood became good news, meaning he was half-way home from DC. I don't remember much about his work when I was very young and we were living in New Hampshire but that he jokingly referred to it as our three-year vacation. I'm not sure my mother thought of it that way when she was alone with four kids in a drafty farm house in 20 below zero weather! I was too young to understand what it meant for my mother. Finally there came a time when he simply no longer had to travel. Our family life then became very sweet.

We never made it to that point with David. There was never any light at the end of the tunnel -- no prospect of the travel ceasing so that we could just be a "normal" family. There was never any true permanence on the horizon -- always transience. It's like living tenuously all the time. At least that's how I felt about it ... and I must imagine the kids did, too. The year my daughter was the drum major for the marching band, he didn't see them march even once. The one and only time he was home and could travel to a competition, it got rained-out. That was tragic. He missed so much of their lives. He really did.

David deeply regretted missing so much of our day to day living. Of course he hated to miss big events in his kids' lives; he hated to miss small events, too! But as his disease progressed, he became less cognizant of these voids. His main focus became his survival, which was marked by his ability to travel and to perform. Performing became the most important thing in his life. How do you explain that to a 16 year old and an 18 year old? Sorry, but Dad just isn't himself. He really would care if his brain allowed him to ...

There were lucid moments like the day our daughter left home for college. He managed to gather every sense and wit that he had to talk to her about how proud he was and how many hopes he had for her education and her future. He was up and about and excited the morning we left, making me pledge to give him hourly text updates on our journey northward and to stay in touch, sharing all the details of the process of her shift into adulthood. Texting was a way of life for us -- the moment to moment way that we communicated (even during Sunday School and church services that we were mutually attending, though in different towns or states). I texted and texted and texted that weekend. He never replied. His silence was alarming.

During the month in Hospice, there were moments here and there of clarity for David. One was sitting together booking a flight home for our daughter. He recalled his password and the process and was quite pleased to be bringing her home with his platinum chairman preferred whatever status with the airline. (Thank goodness he walked me through that! I used his last frequent flyer miles to get her home that Christmas and would not have been able to had he not shown me how and given me the password.) Another was the day he called me asking about the latest book I was reading. And one was the night that he emailed me from his cell phone late, late, late. It was probably after a 3:00 am ice cream sundae (you get whatever you want in Hospice -- cheerfully). In his email he asked me for cigarettes and explained that he would work on quitting very soon after he recovered, got out of there, got on an airplane, got back on the stage -- performing again. This was, perhaps, a week before he died. He absolutely refused to acknowledge anything else.

Of course his next journey was to his Creator -- his Savior. One day, sitting on the floor after he had gently fallen (trying to prove to me that he could stand) we had the most meaningful chat that we'd had in many weeks. He basically asked me where my hope was -- not quite accusing me of failing to share his hope -- his belief that he would recover. I told him that I believed that there was a place at the Table, set just for him. Then we got interrupted. That was the closest we ever got to talking about his death. He never spoke to me of his hopes for the kids and me after he died because he never accepted that he was going to die. No closure. No closure.

So, still, every time I pull-up to the arrival doors at our little airport, I see him coming through those doors, pulling his rolling suitcase with a heavy guitar and a bulky computer case over his shoulder -- tall and strong and alive -- and coming home. For some reason I don't have an image of his back, walking away from me through the departure doors. As I walk through those doors tomorrow to make my way out of town, I wonder if I'll feel like I'm walking in his footsteps. His spirit is still there. He was well-known at our little airport. But they don't know me. I'll be all alone in my musing. Alone in my journey.

I think I just figured out why I'm ambivalent regarding travel. It has historically taken those I love away from me! But tomorrow it's taking ME toward those I love. Home isn't just a place -- it's people. Now I'm going to go pack my suitcase.