A Suitcase of Nostalgia

Ten years ago, I rode with daddy and mummy to the airport, my sister and brother in tow. The family was sending-off their first born.

The months leading up to my departure were spent stewing over the essential possessions and wise counsel that would accompany me as I chomp on freedom’s bit. As mummy struggled to part with her eldest, I coped with thoughts of hacking it in England on my own. It was a tensed moment with emotions of all sorts. I was 21, my sister, 19 and my brother, 13 years old.

Ten years later, we are doing exactly the same thing.

Last Friday, the five of us rolled into a minivan to send mummy and daddy on their longest ever holiday-adventure. Months leading up to their departure, we fussed over their suitcases and clothing. As anxious children, we were quick to caution and counsel. Instructions and directions were not spared about what they should and should not; could and could not do.

As they trudged along and I lost sight of them at the departure gate, I couldn’t help feeling sentimental. It was once again a roller-coaster ride of emotions. Sending them off was like ripping a part of my heart and leaving it at some distant place.

Yet, as I stood where they once stood, waving them on, I knew I carried the same hopes and dreams they had for me when I had set out on my own adventure. It was a bittersweet process.

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Ten years ago, when I left the country, the year ahead stretched forever into the future. Now, all that is all behind me and I am sending them off instead. This makes the years that have gone by feel interminable and all the same, instantaneous.

By the time they read this, mummy and daddy would have marveled at the mighty Colosseum, visited the Pope at Vatican City, rode a Gondola in Venice, stood in awe of the Swiss Alps at Mount Titlis, astonished by the thundering Rhine Falls, gotten high at Amsterdam’s Red Light District, fallen in love all over again beneath the Eifel Tower, watched a musical at London West and so much more.

As parents, mummy and daddy constantly reminds us to stay grounded and never to forget our roots. I am just glad they remember that they still have wings.

(I hope you are having a blast Mama-dude and Daddy-O! We miss you much and can’t wait to hear all about your European adventure!)