Daddy-Daughter Trip
Reflections on flying with Alba.
Last Friday, I flew with my daughter to New Jersey. It’s a trip we take at least twice a year, though, for the first time, we were without Haley or her little brothers en route to Newark for a long weekend of seeing my parents and grandparents in Bayonne.
The Daddy-Daughter trip came together quickly, and I was nervous that despite the excitement created for her the night before, she’d be sad to leave home with just me. My worries were unfounded. Even the 5:30 a.m. wake-up call couldn’t spoil Alba’s mood, as she grabbed her baby monkey and backpack (pre-stuffed by Haley with all kinds of books and craft activities) and hopped into Perla, my Honda Odyssey, for the 30-minute drive to McGhee Tyson.
With garage rates doubling over the past years (now $22/day), I pulled into Economy Lot C ($11/day). We made the walk to the terminal before having to hit reverse—Alba had left on an interior light because “it was too dark,” and I didn’t realize it until nearly checking in1. Fortunately, it’s Knoxville. So I threw Alba on my shoulders, made the 10-minute walk back to the car, and then we caught the shuttle. We were through security within seven minutes, and barely any more time passed before we’d made our mandatory bathroom stop, filled up water bottles, and had a hot coffee in hand (for me) and a cup of Froot Loops (for her).
I love airports. I always have. In college, I’d volunteer to pick up friends and family so I could get there early and do homework while watching the people from all over the world greet each other like in the opening and closing scenes of Love Actually (the movie Haley and I watch together every Christmas after Mrs. Z first let our journalism class watch it together after Mickey’s prodding back in 2007). That was one of the great benefits of growing up 15 minutes from Newark International: the world was, quite literally, at your doorstep.
Alba, at least for now, prefers the airplanes. After we’d taken our seats on the outer edges of the gate area, she asked if she could stand by the window. Every few seconds, with her hand deep in her Froot Loops cup, she’d look back to make sure I was keeping an eye on her (I always was).
Getting to our seats was no problem, both heading to Newark and on our way back when we lucked out and ended up in Aisle 5 with a window seat for the princess, who’d been bummed not to stare out at the clouds on the first flight. Fortunately, on both flights, we had sleepy 20-somethings beside us who didn’t mind when Alba opened up her foldout sticker book onto their armrests, misplaced a foot, or spoke at the volume equivalent of a football stadium loudspeaker.
I love watching Alba about as much as I love the airport/flight experience. Years ago, when I flew part of the year for work, I’d download two or three magazine stories from the journalism aggregator longform.org (RIP) and read them while listening to sad music on Spotify. I’d sometimes take out a laptop to type up stories for work or play. Inevitably, I’d doze off. Now, I rarely fly alone, and while I miss playing my Reflections and Writing playlist while considering the state of humanity and my heart, I love chatting with Alba about silly things like mermaids and why adult shoes all have shoelaces and important things like how high in the sky God lives or whether she should become a doctor, teacher, or ballerina when she grows up (the answer is still pro soccer player, though this week I’m campaigning for Olympic rugby as a back-up profession; she, of course, prefers the gymnastics).
Two years ago, I upgraded to a print subscription of The Atlantic. I’m convinced my phone is an instrument of the devil, so I’ve been doing better to live a more analog life when possible. I brought a few issues I hadn’t yet gotten to with me on the plane. And while Alba ripped out approximately 20,000 sheets of lined paper from a pink notebook Haley had bought her from the Dollar Tree specifically for this trip (the kid, a perfectionist like her Daddy, wasn’t satisfied with the state of her S’s), I read a very sad story about a dad whose adult daughter died suddenly after overcoming brain surgery years earlier. I stared at my beautiful, young, healthy daughter teary-eyed as I read about the loss of his (“Miranda’s Last Gift,” by David Frum is the name of the story).
This line, in particular, struck me:
When a parent loses a child, the nights are the worst. Thoughts come crashing into the mind: every missed medical clue, every pleasure needlessly denied, every word of impatience, every failure of insight and understanding. Like seasickness, the grief ebbs and surges, intervals of comparative calm punctuated by spasms of racking pain. I don’t want to wake my wife, who has a grief schedule of her own, so I slip out of our bed and into the one Miranda used when she stayed with us in Washington.
Two months ago, Enzo nearly drowned. I wasn’t there, so the grief has been a different experience for Haley, who’d had to save him, and me. In the hospital the first night, Enzo reassured her, “It’s okay. God helped me, Mom.” Enzo is two-and-a-half and is—I say this with all the love in the world—far from the sharpest tool in the shed. He insists that he’s going to be a dinosaur, A BIG ONE, when he grows up. We hadn’t yet taught him about God’s omnipresence. And as I’m a Presbyterian, I’m inclined to call a liar anyone who claims God speaks to them in any way except through the words of a Tim Keller book. However, we believed our son, just like I believed my seating arrangement and attire during the World Cup final really would determine its champion (it did).
I know a fair amount of mostly useless things about the world. Lately, Haley and I have been going to bed playing Crosswords. I pat myself on the back when I remember capital cities in Africa or the full names of famous tennis players from four decades ago. But at the stuff that really matters in life, I’m pretty much a dimwit. After what happened to Enzo, Haley has been working to soak in every day, appreciate it fully, knowing tomorrow isn’t promised. I’ve been writing about doing this for two years, keeping a gratitude journal for one, and am no better. Last night, I yelled at the kids 75 times while trying to put them to bed on my own. If God hadn’t given me this morning, my last memories would have been of telling Enzo not to climb out of his crib or else and refusing Alba a third ice cube and cup of water.
But as usual, I’ve digressed. There are moments when I can stop the whirlwind inside my head and focus on what’s important. Usually, those moments are when watching my children think, play, or try to make meaning from a world they’re not yet capable of understanding is absurd or meaningless.
On the plane ride back home, Alba was exhausted after three nights of late bedtimes and playing her heart out as the only Canever baby with grandparents and cousins. She fell asleep on my lap after flipping through just a few pages of her Gabby’s Dollhouse book. One day, she may be too big to do this, and I thought about that while reflecting on all the handholding, question-asking, and cuddling that is so innate to our relationship today. There is so much comfort between a daughter and a daddy at this stage of life. And because I’m not well (mentally, not physically), I can’t help but think of whether we’ll be capable of recreating these moments in 10 years on flights to Barcelona and Wolfsburg and Buenos Aires for soccer trials or escapades to wander inside museums, letting our minds trail off while wondering at beautiful artwork.
We’ve been back for four days, and I’m writing this at 6 a.m. after being caught up in the relentless busyness of being a dad, husband, and employee since. I lament how quickly time passes and how little of it I have to myself. But, at least in the two or three hours total we spent in airports last Friday and Monday, time was right there in front of us. We were able to grab it, bend it, swim in it like merpeople.
During this season of life, the children need Haley much more than they need me. Many of their firsts and most intimate moments happen with Mom. But in my Father’s Day card from the PDO the kids attend this year, Alba wrote that her favorite thing was “special trips with Dad, no Enzo.” Usually, those are short trips to Lady Vols games, preceded or followed up by “pizza sandwiches” at Subway.
Add another special one to the list. Surely not the last. Though, for now, my favorite.
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One of the benefits of being perpetually anxious is that you tend to realize things like leaving lights on, not locking doors, or forgetting laptops, at the last second before you’re out of sight because you’re constantly worried about the worst-case scenario.