Saying goodbye to the people that matter to you is really hard to do. That is one of the simple facts in life.
Just a fair warning, before you read further, get your tissue boxes ready. Because what I'm about to tell you all makes me tear up just thinking of those things!
It goes back almost eight years ago (September 2009), I woke up in the middle of the night when I heard from my room a little commotion downstairs of my house in the Philippines. The first thing came to my mind was, "What's happening downstairs? Do we have a visitor in this time of the night? Is dad already cooking for the day? Is there a problem that they need to attend to? What's going on?"
So I decided to reach for my phone to check for the time. If my memory serves me right, it was around midnight. "Now it's really unusual for anyone in the house to be awake at that time." Which grew my suspicion further that I decided to go downstairs to check whatever is going in there. And I was surprised that I saw some luggage being stuffed and my aunts (my dad's eldest sister and their two cousins) in our house helping out. I momentarily found out that my mom's flight to Louisiana would be in a few hours, which made me fully awake! "Wait! Did I miss out some details from the past week that I didn't know that she'll be flying that day? Certainly it's sudden!" I was well aware during that time that she has been applying to teach in Louisiana. It had been discussed for a couple of months prior about this wonderful opportunity.
All I knew then was that they were still waiting to finish processing all the necessary documents for her to be a teacher in the Caddo Parish Public School System. None of us have any idea when will she be needed to report for work until that Thursday evening when she was notified that she has to be in Shreveport by Monday to do an in-service. Which means she has to leave Manila that early Friday morning. With that urgency, she was not able to say goodbye personally to the rest of our extended family. My grandparents only found out my mom's flight through the text message she sent to her brothers and sister.
For hours, from our house to the airport, I had to hold back my tears. I still couldn't believe that it was going to happen that time. My aunts who not only graciously helped my mom pack also drove us all to the airport after we said our prayers.
While in the waiting area, one of my aunts gave advice to my mom that as she entered through "The Tube" she must walk straight ahead and never pause for even just a second to look at our direction or else it will be much harder for her to leave us. "The Tube" is the special passageway in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal One (NAIA1) intended for all Oversees Filipino Workers since they are special contributors to the nation's economy. Thankfully, while in the waiting area, we met another lady teacher who was also bound for Louisiana who not only will also be in Caddo, but will also be teaching in the same school as my mom. My mom not only found a travel companion, but also a new friend to rely on.
As the time for my mom to check-in for her flight, we bid her goodbye. My brother and I gave our mom a very tight embrace and suddenly all our tears just fell out. "Just endure being apart because it won't be long," our mom told us. "It's just for a while."
My aunts in turn told her to never forget. With that, our dad told us all to sit back and quit crying our eyes out so he could accompany mom to check-in. Let's just say that our dad is allergic to tears, people crying and all those related to that. I tried to calm myself as my aunts stayed with us.
We stayed inside the waiting area for a little longer until mom texted us that she just boarded the plane. We then went outside to watch the plane take-off.
We were weeks away from being reunited with my mom.
