Thursday 27 December 2012

Parting is such sweet sorrow
Something I have always observed in places of travel is the high level of emotion on display. Whether it is a trains station in Europe, a dock in New York or an airport in Cape Town, people openly let go of their feelings and have no shame to show it. The moment is too big. The moment is too real. The moment is too unbearable. There are releases of great joy and abundance of happiness as people rush to embrace after long absences and glorious reunions; there are neck hugging moments of tear filled farewells that touches the hardest heart; there are moments of tip-toe waving and blowing kisses and there are sad shouldered turn arounds with cheeks dripping with moisture of tears.
When will I see them again?
The long wait is the thing that gnaws at the heart.
I remember distinctly when my parents said goodbye to me at Jan Smuts Airport, (it has changed name twice since then and probably will change again, so for those who do not know where that is, it is Johannesburg International Airport, now also known as O.R. Tambo International airport) when I left South Africa to go and study the Bible in the desert of Arizona in Miracle Valley Bible College, how they smiled through the tears and said: 'if we never see you again, we give you to the work of the Lord, son!' Their words echoed in my mind for hours afterwards and I also shed some tears.
Many years later I found a video film in Milnerton Public Library, entitled, 'The Black Robe'. It told the tale of the Jesuit priests who gave up their lives to reach the north Canadian Indians in a snow covered environment. When one of the young priests greeted his mother, he said, 'you will never see me again.' She knew and she shed a tear and took one last look at her son. Then she turned and walked away. He gave his life to reach those heathen Indian tribes and died there. The medicine man told the Indian chief: 'he steals the souls of our people by making that sign of a cross on their foreheads.' The chief had him murdered. That movie made me cry. I could never watch it again, but it keeps on returning in my sub-conscious mind.
The plane is made in the shape of a cross: the body with the two outstretched wings...if seen from the tail camera it resembles a cross. I once heard the words inside of me: 'planes have become your cross,' while watching the plane on the small video screen in the economy section.
When I was young I heard a voice say to me: 'I've counted your travels' (In Afrikaans: 'Ek het jou omswerwinge getel.' I cried because I never bothered to count my travels to other lands at that stage. So I retraced my steps and counted 26 journeys. Since then I have had 246 International flights (not counting the inland flights in all the countries I have been to, like Australia, South Africa, South America, America, India, Europe, UK, China.) Flying has become a part of my cross, yes.
So when I go to an airport and experience the overwhelming emotions of people who might not travel as often as I do, it still touches me, after all this time, especially if I know them.
We said goodbye to our daughter Yve who married Don, an American. There was much tears, although we were also filled with joy for their future. The admixture of joy and sorrow is strange, but true, especially at an airport, or at a harbour, or on the platform of a railway station.
Parting is such sweet sorrow - Shakespeare.

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