On my way back east, the sky darkens.
Tears stream silently down my cheeks,
sobs threaten to burst out of my throat.
It’s the too familiar feeling –
the airplane window,
the pain in my chest.
Memories of past tears
come flooding back.
Leaving my passport country.
Leaving the country I fell in love with.
Wishing I could be on the other plane with my sister, so I could go home to my family.
Surprising my family from the other side of the hemisphere.
Years went by.
I kept flying.
The memories stayed.
The ache lessened.
Until this summer,
when I boarded a plane
on a dark June night in Seattle.
I thought he was going to be okay
when I landed in the morning -
my little nephew in the PICU.
I left his house with the memory
of his tiny hand
cupping my chin,
and his bright dark little eyes.
I landed in Pittsburgh,
turned on my phone.
Messaged my family that I landed,
because that’s what I always do.
Mom called.
She said, Janelle,
he’s gone.
There I was,
in the middle seat of the back row of the plane.
All I could do was sob.
I got off the plane,
walked through the airport in a puddle.
I never went home that day.
I took the next flight back west.
I’m coming home from Washington again
for the fourth time this year.
I’m seated by a window,
again.
I cry silently,
again,
with a pain in my chest too deep to express.
Again.