Rough Riding Home
Walking into an airport and flying to your destination is not for the faint of heart these days. It’s not the glamorous adventure it once was …that’s for sure.
We read about the Toronto airport losing luggage so we decided to only take carry-on…a difficult thing to do when it would be much easier to take a bigger bag and bring home your Christmas presents. But God forbid they should lose THAT luggage so we mailed our gifts home.
We have been blessed to choose Business Class the last couple of trips. My knees are much too sore to be crammed into a regular seat for hours and we’re happy to spend the money on that luxury (thanks for working so hard for us, Terry!)
The first thing we noticed is that our usual morning flight out of Windsor was leaving at 6 PM so that kind of ‘sucked’ as now we were out of the hotel and had a whole day to hang out. Not that that was terrible but you know how it is…when you are packed and ready you just want to go!
So we spent the day saying a final good-bye to folks like Terry’s brother and both sets of parents once more. We had lunch at a really great ‘Windsor Pizza’ place called The Riviera (highly recommend) and of course had the pizza!
We got to the wee airport at 4:30 in plenty of time for our flight and long story short….we didn’t end up boarding until about 8 pm. Ugh!!!!! (We had already returned the rental car and were through security so we couldn’t even leave to grab dinner somewhere).
Then our plane was changed and we lost the seats we paid extra for and ended up in the dreaded ‘knee killer’ seats in the middle of the plane…which was now a noisy ‘prop’.
Landing in Toronto was such a relief as we knew our connecting flight had also been delayed from 9 to 10:30. But what was NOT fun was that there were apparently no ground crews to help us get out of the plane and they kept us all jammed in there for another hour and a half while we sat on the tarmac…just feet away from the doors of the airport. UGH!
What I look for in situations like these is kindness. And when our neighbouring passenger heard that we had now missed our connecting flight he stood up and pulled down OUR bags for us and even helped me up out of my seat when he overheard that I had some mobility issues. He then carried my computer bag for me and gave me his arm to step up to the doors of the airport while Terry once again wheeled the bags for us. I love these kind people!
We moved as fast as I was able to the gate (of course at the other end of the airport!) in time to see hoards of folks waiting for their cancelled or delayed flights. Shockingly, our flight actually did go (although 2 1/2 hours late) and we had a pretty pleasant flight home to snowy, frigid Edmonton.
I crawled into bed after a night of no sleep at 5:30 am (our time from Windsor) and had to wake up early as there was an electrician booked for 9 am to fix a problem in the house. (fixed!)
So: we’re home.
Our children from B.C. had no water or heat for 13 hours (freak snowstorm there) and just found out their flight was cancelled leaving them with no food in the house . We hope they arrive tomorrow. Our daughter, Lana, just had her flights cancelled twice now from Michigan( where she was visiting Jeff’s family) too.
But we’ve heard worse stories of friends with Covid, other friends sick or even dying. There’s a lot to process right now.
So, I’ll stick with looking for the kindness and goodness.
Our cab driver helped me up the stairs in the dark and slippery wee hours and gave me a hug good-bye last night and a “Merry Christmas”.
Is it ‘merry’? YES!
Because we love. We got to BE with some of those we love, we are about to BE with some of those we love, I love YOU, and ….well…God IS love!
So yes, it will be a happy Christmas…… and now it’s time to do laundry and groceries.
God bless you all!
( Update: All home (!)….one suitcase of luggage lost in Toronto for our Lana)