This Moment In Time

We get to the airport over two hours early, only to find out our plane is delayed 2.5 hours.  This is bad news, as it means we will miss our connection from Munich to Tirana tomorrow morning.

“Don’t worry,” the Lufthansa agent says to us.  “There’s a flight every 2-3 hours to Tirana.” 

“Really?” said I; this is not what I was expecting to hear. 

“Yes, but I cannot book you now.” says the man in the navy coat.  “They must do it in Munich.”

“Oh, ok, thank you.” said I, naively.  

He smiled. That should have been my first clue.  The second clue came from the kayak.com app my husband downloaded onto his iPhone.  It said the next Lufthansa flight wasn’t until 9:30 PM the next day.  I assimilated this information pretty quickly and thought “Cool. A day in Munich!”  I looked over at my husband as he refreshed the page, looking expectantly at the screen as if another Lufthansa flight would appear.  I realized this must be pretty disappointing for him, and I suddenly felt very bad.  I pointed to the Air France flights also listed, which were more frequent.  “Maybe they’ll rebook us on one of those flights.” I suggested hopefully.  “I don’t think they partner with them.” He said wisely.  “We’ll see.” I said. 

We called a friend to come get us (thanks Haris!) to grab some food.  My last meal in the USA was Ana’s Taqueria.  Mmmmm…a good way to go out. 

*          *          *

We landed in Munich a bit worse for the wear but still with that “traveling abroad” sheen of excitement (Ahem.  I mean “traveling home after 15 years and the biggest accomplishment of my husband’s life completed” sheen of excitement).  We headed towards the Lufthansa counter to discuss our options, and it turns out the 9:30 PM flight was the only one available.  Again, I assimilated this change pretty quickly, but I could see my husband’s hopes dashed the minute we were actually booked on that flight. I paused to think for a moment about his perspective.  I hadn’t just become a citizen of the United States after a lifetime of struggle to earn it, I hadn’t been waiting 15 years for this trip, and I didn’t have an entire family waiting in a country thousands of miles away that time, distance and culture made it difficult to keep in touch with.  I took his hand and told him it was just a few more hours.  He put on a brave face for me. 

My husband is a good man, and moderates his emotions well.  It’s rare to see him express any kind of high or low.  Ask him how he feels about something, and he’ll tell you what he thinks about it.  I know he feels emotion (I’ve seen him bleed!), but getting them out of him on a day-to-day basis is like playing that Chinese finger socket game.  Once you’ve got your fingers in, you can’t pull them out.  You pull harder and the resistance is only stronger.  Eventually you realize that you’ve got to gently coax your fingers out by twisting and turning them slowly and…voila!  I couldn’t help but think that I might actually see him get emotional this trip (the only times I’ve ever seen him get truly emotional is with regard to family), and that it actually might be a bit overwhelming for him.  The idea of anything overwhelming my husband emotionally is really difficult to imagine.  I decided that I would need to take extra good care of him this trip.