My daughter Gigi and her boyfriend Chris came to visit us for their spring break a couple of weeks ago. It says a lot to me that they not only chose to spend their vacation time in North Carolina, but that they paid for their airfare.
Chris, like Gigi, is a child of divorce. He is close to his brothers, in fact lives with one of them, if I'm correct. Still, I wonder how he feels when he visits here and he get thrown into the extended family. He appears to handle it well, and even to enjoy it.
Gigi now no longer disappears into herself when we visit my family. It is good, not only that she interacts with her grandparents, aunts, and cousins, more, but that she put herself front and center more. She is studying elementary education with the intent of becoming a teacher, after all.
Gigi and Chris aren't engaged, but they are thinking about marriage. I'm happy that my daughter's first truly serious relationship is with a young man who respects her, and who is working to put himself into our family. That's better than I had in the past.
They flew home out of Charlotte, a week ago yesterday. I always try to get to the airport well more than an hour before domestic flights these days, but we got out of Greensboro 30 minutes later than I wanted -- I guess the stop at Bojangles for breakfast was worth it as a last bit of Southern cuisine for our Midwestern bound pair -- and we got to Douglas airport about 50 minutes before their flight was due to leave. Gigi asked us just to drop them off curbside at the terminal, instead of parking and walking them in. For once, there weren't tears at departure, just hugs and promises to see each other again as soon as we could arrange it. That will be at Andy's high school graduation in June.
As we drove away from the terminal, Lisa saw that the hourly parking deck was just across the street from the terminal. We could have parked and gone in with them through check-in and up to security. Live and learn.
We stopped at a nearby Wendy's, got a couple of sodas, and simply waited with our phones on, until after their departure time. Just in case, you know.
Our soundtrack for the ride home was Simon "We play everything" 98.7 FM out of Greensboro. Back to everyday life, with an interlude of a phone call from Gigi, just before we reached Greensboro, to let us know that their flight had landed in Chicago.
