The Goodbye Girl

Or; why I fly 5 hours, (that's 2,133 miles according to http://www.convertunits.com/) to spend one night in a Newark, NJ hotel with my airline pilot husband, then fly 5 hours (yep, another 2,133 miles) home ... alone.

When I say I'm flying to Newark to overnight with my husband Keith, and will be home the next day while he flys off to some far off place, I'm usually met with blank stares or something like; "what the heck for?" I could say it's because I like the pizza in New Jersey (Bruno's - yum), I could say I like hotel romance, I could say I enjoy the occasional (make that rare) upgrade to First Class on Continental Airlines ... and all of that would be true. But the real reason I do it, is to spend those few precious hours with my husband.

Home life is a nonstop crush of schedules and committments, of school bells and student pilot training, of expectations and deadlines. But the 5 hours on the airplane to Newark, even if my husband is asleep in the seat beside me, and the ten to twelve hours alone with him in a New Jersey hotel room are a gift beyond compare.

For those few hours there are just two of us. There are no one elses wants and needs more important than our own, there is just my husband and me enjoying the quiet of a small New Jersey hotel room as we sip our Coke-a-Cola's and eat our pizza, and share a few hours of husband and wife talk.

Then all too soon it's over, and I'm re-packing our bags in preparation of going our seperate ways. I take his dirty laundry home with me (no sense in him carrying it to China and back), and we grab a quick cup of tea before the van takes us back to Newark Airport. My job as the Goodbye Girl is about to begin.

At the airport there is just enough time for a late breakfast or early lunch, then Keith is due in the weather room. There, as he meets the rest of his flight crew, he pours over weather reports and route charts and begins in earnest his work as the professional and dedicated pilot I so admire and respect. He will inevitably introduce me to the Captain and the IRO's (International Relief Officers) flying with him, but it's my job to stay in the background, quietly observing but beaming with pride. That man, the one discussing impending turbulance and route diversions with such experienced authority ... that man is my husband ... imagine that.

I always schedule my return flight to depart after Keith's plane leaves, so once he's through in the weather room we head to the gate where his airplane awaits crew and passengers alike. I find a quiet corner in which to wait, while Keith goes down to the plane to "load the box", a pilot's expression for loading the route and flight data into the airplanes computer.

It's not long before my husband is back at my side, asking how the loads (seating) look for my own flight, and what I plan to do whilst he's away. Small talk fills the next few minutes, but it's what we don't say that hangs so heavily in the air. That we'll miss each other. That I wish he could retire tomorrow. That I hate goodbyes.

All too soon the gate agents begin calling row numbers, filling the plane with passengers. Keith hugs me, telling me how much he appreciated and enjoyed my coming all this way for such a few small hours. He reminds me it'll only be four days and then he'll be home again. In my mind those four days might just as well be forty-four. One more lingering kiss good bye and it's my husbands back that's disappearing down the jetway. But not before he turns around one last time and using the ASL sign for "I love you" - blows a kiss to his goodbye girl.

I wait at the window in the boarding area as all the passengers board, the door is closed, the jetway is wheeled away from the plane, and the supertug begins the slow push of my husbands' beautiful jet towards the runway. One last kiss blown back and forth, one last "I love you" hand sign, one last prayer asking God to keep him safe, and he's gone.

My job as the goodbye girl is over ... until the next time I pack an overnight bag and follow my pilot husband 2,133 miles to Newark New Jersey for a few precious hours with the man I love.

Why do I do it? Because to do otherwise would be to rob us of that time together. Because my husband seems so much more relaxed when I'm saying goodbye to him in person than over the phone. Because it makes the man I adore feel loved and special. And that he is.

Lori