Going Home Alone..

..The flight was well under way when I wake up and saw my seatmate watching me. I introduced myself and asks him all the normal questions that people asks kids: age, school, name and lastly if his parents are on board the plane.
Suddenly, his big blue eyes were locked on mine and his expression grew strangely stiff. Then I realized that he was trying to control his face muscles. The harder he tried to hold his chin up, the harder it quivered.

"What's wrong?", I asked. By then tears were no longer secret between us. His watery gaze unbroken, he answered my question with the rawest and most naked statement that I have ever heard 'I want my Mommy!"
The boy had said goodbye to his mother at the airport and was en route to his father who had custody of him. "I miss her so much" he quaked as he sobs. "She cried too" he said as though to justify the outpouring emotion. This explained the boy's late entry on the plane.

"This is ridiculous. I can't cry the whole trip", he said interrupting his sobs. He then told me how his mom and him had took a taxi, stayed up late, seen a movie, went to the best toy store in town and used all the money that his father had given her.
Putting on a brave face, he tried to talk of other things..but he kept coming back to the realization that the plane was carrying him farther and farther from his mom. "I just wish she was here" he kept saying. "But I can't go on crying like this", he said wiping his tears on the already wet sleeves of his sweater.

Clumsily I tried to offer him the few truths that I have learned in turbulent times: life can be really hard but you'll always feel better after you felt bad. But I didn't know how to tell him that there are no ready remedies for the sorrows of goodbyes. This child was one of the many who travel solo from one home to another, the lost luggage of parents who couldn't stand each other and now have to divide their children between them. Perhaps it's not fair of me to question the domestic arrangements of others. Yet, as I listened to the story coming from this little child, I couldn't help but wonder if the parents would have tried harder if they had seen this pain.....
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Cat feels just like the child..oo.I do miss him so much..i do..