The Remains of the day

Goodbyes to family at airports are heart wrenching affairs. There's the shuffling of the feet, the spaces of silence, the mandatory cup of hot chocolate no-one wants but is drunk to kill time before immigration.

There's the walk to the departures section all the while the lump in your throat grows bigger. My father reaches out to put a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket, I refuse and suddenly there's a huge back and forth row that puts everyone in a good mood for that little bit.

You touch their feet, that kiss on the cheek and the eyes start to fill up. Your nerves of steel mother lets a tear slip. My Dad and I are veterans of goodbyes - we've done this four times in four years yet his eyes fill up, I let that lump grow and grow, my head feels heavy. I hug my mother in that awkward way and for a moment she's lost in my hug - she struggles to understand the tears.

You watch them depart holding their hand luggage, there's that turn around and wave goodbye and they vanish into a blur of people getting to where they need to. You stand there at the glass that separates you , the lump in your throat still threatening to explode, your girlfriend slings her arm across your waist, i worry she's going to catch my irregular breathing. She doesn't say anything - she gives my arm a couple of squeezes . I stand there for a bit trying to catch my breath and we take a quiet cab ride back home.

Its that's moment you enter home and stand at the door wondering where the past week went, heavy like a loaded gun I walk around the house tidying up. There's dad's last cup of tea, there's a sachet of empty low calorie sweetener lying on the kitchen table. There's the piles of newspaper that Mum read before bed. There's that brochure from the Hippo open bus tour, there's the water bottle for the night in the bedroom. There's that underwater world ticket. There's that strawberry jam dad likes in the fridge, there's his apple he didn't eat. There's mum's case for her glasses that she left in haste. There's the light glow bulbs that dad ripped out of the streamers that they gave to us in the Opening ceremony for the Youth Olympic games, they life there - dead and lifeless but it captured my dad's excitement for a whole morning.

We all move away from our folks - we fight, we don't talk, we groan when we see that SMS asking to log onto skype. Yet when it comes to goodbye's we become blubbering 6 yr old's not wanting to go to school.

We watch them age in one week snapshots every year. We go back to Skype conversations, we watch each other's lives via a screen and facebook updates.

....we clean up the remains of the day and the next day comes, we get ready for the morning commute and carry on with life.