Day 119: Almost Home

June 27, 2014

I'm currently sitting in the airport in Dallas/Ft. Worth waiting to board the the last leg of my journey home. The 12-hour flight from Incheon to DFW was uneventful. Lots of napping. The latest podcast of This American Life. Twice woken up to be served questionable food wrapped in plastic and tinfoil. Watched "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and caught myself snort-laughing on more than one occasion. Thank you, Wes Anderson. Thank you, Ralph Fiennes. And especially thank you, Willam Defoe.

I'm overlooking the fact that I wept my way through security and onto the plane. I wept my way past the first class passengers who probably thought I was coveting their spacious chairs, comfy slippers, and free-flowing drink carts, and rightfully so. I excused myself and wept my bag up into the overhead bin and wept my way to seat 27J. There was a considerable amount of weeping.

What was that about? A few things, I think. It started as I sipped a latte and was waiting for my flight out of Incheon. Well- no. Wait. Before that, I think. On the several hour bus ride on the way to the airport. I wanted to nap, but my mind was busy dancing around various memories as though I had no control over what was playing up there. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. But here I was the January before last taking a bus to the airport on the way to Vietnam playing a game of funny text messaging with Gareth. I'm sure my snorts drew attention on that ride. And when the messaging ran its course, one of us called the other and we spoke nearly the whole way there- my voice brought to a whisper so as to not disturb the others on the bus. I thought about this and smiled. No tears.

Our bus drove past some kind of structure that looked like a miniature version of the Space Needle and I thought about the one plopped halfway between Hadong and Gyeongju, near Yangsan. We'd use this as a marker when one was driving to see the other. A text message or call: "At the space needle! Not long now!" This didn't make me cry. I thought about this, too, and smiled. No tears.

I walked through the busy airport, pushing my luggage balanced on a cart with a wonky wheel, and thought about last summer's trip home with Gareth penning a poem for me as we sat and had coffee in the airport before my flight. I have it somewhere. Folded up. Sweet words in anticipation of longing. I found a spot to sit and have a coffee and was aware of the heaviness of being alone. And it's not that I don't love to travel alone. I do. And it's not that I don't love my independence. I do. I was just aware- very aware- that Gareth is not here with me now.

Something about that permanence is what got me today. Gareth will not ever take a plane home with me. He won't meet my family or friends. He won't see where I grew up. We won't tour the U.S. And even in the few weeks before he died when this looked like a slim possibility to anyone else, I know that deep down, against all odds, I had still hoped for and wished this to be potential reality. I grieve the loss of Gareth as much as I grieve the loss of what I hoped could have been in another life with another set of circumstances. I just don't get it. What a great match we were. Other factors be damned.

I floated around in these thoughts, with these thoughts, for a brief moment before the tears came. And here they were again, the sobbing variety. I've become good at it, really- letting it come and watching it go. I'm thoroughly convinced it needs to be done, this release of pain, and if I fight it when I feel it, it will just come back and give it another go. Not a convenient time? No time is convenient, really, is it? It's just not. So I let it happen. This is what grief looks like, and perhaps if we didn't fight it so much, it wouldn't make us so uncomfortable to be in the presence of it. Think of me as your friendly grief diplomat. Shake hands with me and hand me a tissue, if you don't mind.

It shouldn't be a surprise by this point that I looked up in the middle of this particular wave and found myself sitting next to this gate:

There it is again. That magic number. Ok, Gareth. I get it. I'll be ok. Ride this one out.

One I was settled on the plane that wave- or series of waves, really- seemed to have passed. I remembered the words of Megan Devine reminding me "You're doing this right. You can't mess this up" in reference to the grief process. Tears or no tears, waves or no waves, I'm doing it right. Exactly the way I need to be doing it, which may look different from or the same as another person in grief. Megan also said, and I won't get this exactly right, but something to the effect of "Grief is not a falling away from the path. Grief IS the path." That's it. That's exactly it.

Waking up at one point during the flight, I realized I was wearing a shirt that Gareth bought me to make me laugh (it reads "animal party- maybe the zookeeper forgot to lock the door. The park isf illed with animals"), an eye mask he gave me last December on my birthday in Seoul, and I was wrapped in a soft, navy travel blanket he'd gotten me because I'd frequently get cold. Gareth is everywhere with me. It would be hard to purge myself of reminders, even if I wanted to.

last December in Seoul- Gareth surprised me with several birthday gifts during lunch at a Mexican restaurant. My favorite was this animal sleeping mask. Look at my happy face!

The same mask and the blanket he got me accompany me on trips.

Gareth was always on the lookout for little gifts that would fuel my joy. I'm wearing this on the flight home.

 Wearing the same shirt in happier times.

So, I'm just a few hours from being back home. The feeling is, of course, different from last time I came through here. I'm no longer in awe of all the English being spoken around me or of all of the restaurants I recognize. This airport is merely a stop on the way home. The world seems smaller.

I was worried Korea (and Gareth) would feel so far away. But it's not. It's here. And here. And here. Things become woven into our fabric and that is what we are cloaked in. And when I go home I will weave some more. More friends. More family. More love.