the holiday spirit

It's Thanksgiving and I'm flying home to see my family. We haven't spoken in years. Occasionally we exchange letters, so I'm hoping to surprise them. I'm sorry I haven't been a better son/brother/nephew. I hear I'm even an uncle now. I'm not a very good uncle, either. I've seen a picture of my niece. She is a smiling infant in every photo and looks the same as every other smiling infant and I'm not there.

I don't know if they miss me. I haven't been very good to them. Not since my work, or my wedding, and maybe I cared too much about my wife or my job or too little about them but I think I was happy and really I knew that there would always be my family if things went wrong. Things haven't gone wrong. My wife and I both decided we should see our families this time around, though she's been good about keeping in touch with hers and that's all right with me.

The airport is already festive and it's cold and everyone has winter clothes now. It seems too early for this sort of thing. I didn't have coffee this morning and I've been up all night worried about traveling, and I never worry about traveling. But this time was different. Maybe it'll go wrong. It feels like there's something at stake.

Over and over in my head I imagine all the different ways it could go wrong. The plane crashes. The plane gets hijacked. I see all of these scenarios, me frozen with terror, unable to do anything as the flight makes its way to its destination. I board the plane with trepidation. I've never felt it so important to celebrate the holidays with my family.