I can't remember how Noah and my mom and dad got to the airport. Who drove them? It's reasonable to think that Dan's mom drove us to the airport so that I could say goodbye from there. Reasonable to imagine my final goodbye was a teerful hug with my mom at the security checkpoint and then taking the lone car ride with Joan back to the family's house. But I remember none of this.

In my memory this wasn't a gloomy day. Instead what sticks with me is the ruckus caused by Dan and Kenny more than any brooding or worrying over my family's departure. We didn't use cell phones or social media back then. Instead we  went the 24+ hours without hearing from each other on these long international flights. Plane rides terrified me. My head knew that crashes were extremely rare, that car rides were more dangerous, but I always carried this unshakeable feeling that it would be the ride me or someone I knew was on that would be that statistical anomaly. Even for this trip I was preparing myself for the scenario of my family dying in the crash. I think I would've been depressed if I had been in a living situation where I felt alone during this time. But being with Dan and Kenny everything felt like it was going to be okay. Even if my family's flight were to crash.