We, the sleepless parents (4 posts left…)

 

Finn taking stairs (both up and down) while flights cancelled Friday.

I think there’s a haunt assigned specifically to Fincher air-travel.

 

We’ve officially changing our airport of preference to Denver, not because our airport is not good enough.  It is.  But because most airlines have ditched our airport during the non-ski season that we need more options than United.  Sorry, United.  Delta, our typical carrier before moving to Colorado, has you beat.   United feels like a clumsy, outdated, cumbersome company.  So busy acquiring Continental they seem to have overlooked creature-comforts that we need in air travel.  Drop the baggage charge so we have more overhead stowage.  And stop with the Economy Plus upgrade.  Give everyone a few inches extra leg-room please.  And 1995 called and wants their CRT monitors back.

After our flights canceling last night and hunting down a hotel room, we were ready to get home.  We left the hotel at 10am and caught our first flight to Chicago.  Then our next flight to Denver with an hour on the tarmac waiting to take off.  Lots of planes in line for de-icing.

We were tired when we landed in Denver after two flights.  We tried to bump up to an earlier flight for our last leg home, but none were available.  Not a single plane in United’s fleet was flying home sooner than 9:35pm.

And so the six-hour layover began.  I would tell you all that we did, but I don’t want to be bored with reliving that again.

Then our time came.  We neared exhaustion.  Mom was sleep-walking.  I was beyond the fatigue that leads to nausea.  Finn cried and cried as a prisoner who wants sleep amid the noise and lights that refuse to grant it to him.

Finn finally slept after Mom worked with him, pacing the terminal.  Layovers are tiring.  Air travel is tiring.  Add an 11-month old to the mix and you multiply the tired by 3x.

Then the flight was delayed more.  And more.  An hour later we boarded.

Then the flight home and the drive home.  I hit the pillow at 1am, Mom and Finn getting a slight head start.  I collected thoughts for a talk at a church in Vail in the morning.

I can relate to parents of infants better now than ever.  I used to see families and think very little of it.  ”There’s a family of wee ones,” I’d think.  I’d give them a glance and a smile and was glad other people had a knack with kids.

But now, NOW, I see passed the families into the eyes of these parents.  And I know.  I know the sleep they yearn to have, the extra hands, the on-demand pocket-nanny.  I know their plight.  I can stand among them and stand for them.  We are the sleepless parents, the walking dead, who were once alive and are now unsure.  We think Purgatory may be real now and we’re caught in it, purging ourselves of sin.  We know at the other end of this rainbow, which is my child, is a pot of gold.  We believe it, but we cannot feel it.  We stand united with knowing glances and encouraging nods.  This is love, not that our child loves us, but that we love him, and die daily on the cross of parenthood.  Though he knows little of our suffering, I now know better of my parents’ suffering.  Graduate school and parenting: two seasons that plague adults with a need for wrinkle cream.

Finn, one day you may ask of us, “How do you love me?”  Well, like God, we love you in unlooked places.  Those unlooked places are those that have buoyed you along to even raise the question.  The reply, “Well, you’re here now, aren’t you?”

And after that reply, I’ll take a nap in remembrance of the early years.  My wrinkles, like my sleep, will be long and deep.

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