Tomorrow I’m driving my boys to the airport. They’re not really “boys” any more since they’re 19 now, but they’ll always be my boys, I imagine, even when they’re 63. (I will be a young and svelte 91 years old, for those keeping score at home.)
They’ve never flown by themselves before. I’m not really nervous for them, but they are a little apprehensive, I think, and their dad is, too. (I don’t call him Mr. Safety without reason!) They are just going to visit their friend in Illinois. Only a few months after we moved here, their buddy moved to Illinois, so it will be a reunion quite likely involving loud music, Mountain Dew and late night laughter.
It’s weird to think that when I was their age–younger, actually–my dad put me on a Greyhound bus and sent me off to college. I rode by myself three days and nights on that bus WITHOUT A CELL PHONE. Ponder that. I was a little scared, especially when the bus would stop at seedy bus stations in the dark of the night and the bus driver would ask us to leave the bus so they could clean it (or whatever they were doing).
But, hey! I survived! Mostly, there are nice people in the world, even on Greyhound buses.
I hope my boys will discover that flying alone is fun and not scary and that most people are really very nice and helpful. Let it be so. Amen.
Actual Unretouched Photo 
It’s always scary seeing them ‘fly the nest’… kind of literally in this case, although I assume they’ll be home again before long. But there are two of them… so neither is exactly alone. And it could be worse… when my older son was 18, we put him on a plane to Tanzania for a two-month mission trip. Now THAT was nervewracking… (for us. He was fine). We had bullied him into having his first mobile phone about a week before he left – not for his sanity, but for mine.
Hope your boys have a wonderful trip!
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The USA was a lot safer back in those days. But two guys together will have fun. The nervous edge makes it more fun. You notice everything. 🙂
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