Yes, travel was what brought me to the airport that day. My first born was about to leave for the summer in Europe. A little sightseeing in London and Paris then eight weeks as a camp counselor in the mountains surrounding Lake Geneva, Switzerland, and then ten days more of traveling afterward. What memories she’ll bring home from this summer! She was a woman grown, almost 22 now. This wasn’t the first that she has been gone from home, although this was the farthest she has roamed. And this stop at home was probably the last long one we’ll have.

At the airport we watched two sisters, maybe 9 and 11, in gingham dresses, one pink, one blue, prepared to leave their mom behind. They, too, would be traveling alone although under the watchful eyes of the airline as unaccompanied minors. They wore “UM” labels around their necks with their itinerary attached from “US Air Kids” straps. The younger one, the one in pink, was teary-eyed, reluctant to go. I watched in admiration as their mom, dry-eyed, waved goodbye as they headed for the plane.

We stood together, that mom and I, until the plane pulled away from the gate. “It never gets any easier,” I said. “I watched my grown daughter board that plane, but dry-eyed I was not. I admire your strength.”

“Oh,” she laughed, “but I’ll cry all the way home. I couldn’t do it in front of them or they’d never go.”

It is funny how we mothers do that, meet our children’s needs before our own. I knew I could let the tears show. My daughter was following the path of her own choosing, her destiny and, while she told me not to go there as my eyes welled up, she saw my love for her in those damp eyes.

The other mother knew just as clearly that her tears would cause her reluctantly leaving daughter to crumble and held the tears back. They needed to see her strength; my daughter needed to see my vulnerability.

Yes, it was a made to order, picture perfect day. Perhaps not one the I had ordered, but perfect in the way it had to be.