Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.
So. My wife tells me, long before she hops her November 8 flight for her month-long return to the US from our makeshift home in Korea where I teach English for the money; she says, now be sure to continue to update this blog. Take care of Natalie and give her a bath and feed her properly and take her to the babysitter every day and pick her up; send money and shop and talk to me on the phone and internet and Messenger and wash the clothes and dishes and don't let Natalie watch too much TV and, oh yes, get to work on time. And be sure to update this blog.To be sure, I planned to plan to coordinate everything. But isn't a month up yet? After all, it's been five (she left Sunday morning) long days. The only thing I really have gotten a handle on is getting to work relatively not-too-much-later-than-on-time. And taking care of Natalie, who also won't let me forget that 'Dad, I'm here!' Mama's gone and so is the strand of nursing Natalie still clings to, so whatever father-daughter bond there is gets exploited as we forge on together while mom luxuriates in the Land of Plenty.
Believe me that many things have volunteered to heighten the suspense in these past days, so I'd better start from the beginning. That happens to be Sunday, November 8 at about 10:15 am, when we waved Natalie's mom goodbye and left her to the ravages of customs at Incheon International Airport, Korea.
There was a glass wall that separated us once she was allowed into the Harassment Zone, aka security (my wife, I think, would tell you that her experience there warrants that). Natalie continued to look through the glass, with me holding her, until she could see her mom get through the security gate and walk away. . .and finally disappear out of sight. Really, that's when the first wave of 'I miss mama' began gently nudging her. She called out 'mama' loudly several times, after one of which Janeen did actually see us and wave goodbye.
Since the beginning of the month, we'd been marking off the days until Janeen would have to go, and she'd eagerly await every bedtime, when she could X out another box. Natalie was happy for momma during this time, if unsure about the thought of separation, and I could see that whole week the revelation just waiting to take her over.
We walked away finally, back into the airport, to replace the luggage cart. It was during that walk that she first said 'I sure miss mama': it didn't take long. She liked riding on and pushing the cart, though, so we spent time looking around at everybody coming and going at a busy, busy Sunday airport. We rode the glass elevator up to the third floor and down to the first, saw a fountain area (Natalie's a great fan of fountains) and hurried past all the shops available before someone's eyes got hungry for what daddy wasn't willing she should stomach. I wanted to take her to the airport arboretum, small but interesting, but we walked around for a while without seeing signs for it until I realized it was in a separate building across the driveup road to the airport and accessible by a long walk across two long moving sidewalks on the second floor. We just had to walk the sidewalks for Natalie, but it was still a way off, so we got on our way to the first floor to wait for a bus to take us away from it all. Away from mama, who had already taken off into the skies by that time, anyway.
| posted by John at 7:36 PM
