Sunday, July 20, 2008

What a Difference a Week Makes

This was the scene at the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport last Sunday, a scene in which I unfortunately found myself while trying to make a connecting flight to Memphis. I was sitting on the floor under a bank of what was once a row of pay phones...do you even remember pay phones? The crowds of people were just unbelievable, even for Atlanta Hartsfield, and I thought to get proof by reaching in my bag for my camera and taking a picture. Of course, in hindsight, it is not advisable to just aim a camera at a crowd of people you don't even know and take a picture lest someone step over to you and say, "Your camera or your life!" At the moment this was taken, I was feeling my life slip away from me anyway...I thought I might perish in this mass of humanity...so I might have tried to hang on to the camera and see what would happen.


It seems that prior to my arrival, the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport had been closed for 2 1/2 hours due to severe weather conditions. I was to wait there, wallowing around on various parts of the floor of the airport for 7 hours while those poor souls in control tried their best to sort out the resulting mess. Scheduled to arrive in Memphis at the decent hour of 5:47 pm, it was closer to midnight when I got there, and then there was the no-small-matter of my suitcase which was nowhere to be found on the merry-go-round conveyor belt. Since Memphis was not my final destination and I was about an hour and a half away from that, those who were so kind as to come for me at the late hour and I decided to wait for "The Next Plane from Atlanta" scheduled to arrive about an hour and a half later. We were assured that the suitcase would "probably be on that plane." It was not. We filled out the obligatory forms and left instructions as to where to deliver said suitcase should it ever arrive and drove the hour and a half south to Oxford, MS.


I had received word earlier in the week (on Wednesday afternoon) that Bob (for those of you who do not know him by name, my former husband and father to our 4 children) had died in a car accident. In a remote location myself, making contact with those who needed to be contacted was difficult. It did not help that Ben was on a ship a thousand miles out of Honolulu somewhere on the Pacific Ocean. (Ironically, it would be Ben and his family who would be the first to arrive in Oxford...thanks to some risky maneuvers by the US Coast Guard including the landing of a C-130 on the abandoned runway of a completely abandoned island to pick him off the island where his shipmates had left him off after walking the 2-mile runway and removing any obstacles to the landing of an aircraft.) Stephen was the last to be informed as he and his family were vacationing in a remote cabin in the woods of Vermont...no cell phone coverage. Just before we were about to try to contact the sheriff...if we could determine which sheriff...I remembered getting a brief e-mail from Stephen telling me that they were leaving the following day. I retrieved that e-mail from the "delete bin" and there was a land line phone number for the cabin. So was everyone thus informed and we began to make our separate travel plans and make our way to Oxford.


The decision had been made to cremate, but there was to be a two hour visitation with the family prior to the funeral, a memorial service following that, and a reception following that. This was to take place on Monday beginning at noon following my ill-fated flight on Sunday evening. So I did what any of the probably tens of thousands of Americans a year do when their luggage is lost...make a foray out to WalMart for the necessities. I was thus able to brush my teeth, have on clean underwear, and suitable shoes and slacks and shirt. I was, in short, presentable. In the afternoon, we would return to the house where we were staying to find my suitcase on the porch.


The occasion was, of course, a sad one...especially because of the suddenness of the accident and the unexpectedness of the death. Bob was 72 but still very active in his work and still able to travel the world on expeditions that would have caused anyone else to actively seek a retirement. All of our children and their spouses and their children were able to be there and it was good for all of them to be together and good for me to be with them.


This Sunday, one week after being a captive of an airport, I am back at Holden and very happy to have been able to return here safely. It is good to be back. Dinner tonight will be Holden's famous "pasta bar" and there will be at least 3...maybe 4...kinds of pasta that will prove to be a torture to limit your choice to just one. It is the accustomed Sunday night feast. Last Sunday night, I squirmed my way into a Popeye's and used a pay phone shelf for a stand-up table. I did not worry about the conditions under which it was cooked nor the conditions under which I had to eat it...I was glad to get it.




1 comment:

baysail said...

glad to know you are safely back at Holden. what a trip to get to Oxford! being together i imagine was good for all.