Getting Her Home

Thursday, the 19th was going just fantastically until we get a text from Shaney who is bummed out because her flight has been delayed one hour.  That's a bummer!  Pizza for dinner since we'll be getting home so late.  The next text I get is from Shaney again saying her flight is cancelled.  Somewhere in there my brother-in-law, Phil, is looking online as well as my brother, Peter to find her another plane to get her home.  Lines are huge and everyone's flights are being cancelled.  We are now becoming frantic.  Daddy (Mother and Dad just happened to be spending Christmas in Utah this year) is at the airport with her talking to desk people to see what we can do.  Phone calls and texts are exchanged, too many to count, and the final verdict is Monday the 23rd.  She will be flying home on Monday.  NO NO NO!  Not good enough!  I brake down into tears and sobs completely surprising myself with my dramatic response.  In desperation I grab my coat, purse and keys and run to the car.  I will drive out there and get her and be back in a little over 24 hours.  By this point I am absolutely DESPERATE to get this girl home.  I turn on the engine, and my mind begins racing with options.  Ah, ha!  Municipal.  Who do we know with a pilots licence?  I go back inside to call our local airport to see how much it would cost to send someone out there to fetch her and bring her home.  I was referred to another nearby airport where I was told, by some yahoo who wasn't thinking as fast as I was speaking, that it would cost about 3k to 7.5k to charter her home.  If I had the money I would have put it down right then and there.  More texts and phone calls are exchanged and made by all of us trying to get her home.  My dad and Shaney's cousin Brittany are still at the airport with her.  Finally, FINALLY, we get her on a flight that will get her home Thursday night.  It is an absolute miracle that we got her on this flight.  Dave was having a hard time purchasing the ticket online, until the last try.  Shaney's was the LAST seat.  Back at the airport my dad and niece see her through security.  Her plane was actually coming from Seattle so there are no threats of cancellation, guaranteed.  And then she will be home.  (Huge sigh of relief.)  Hours and hours pass.  Delay after delay, for this that and the other and she finally is in the air.  Two hours later and I am at the luggage carousels waiting for her.  Jared says, "look, Mom, there she is!"  I turn my head and there is my beautiful girl.  We literally run to each other smashing into an embrace and sob.  I'm so relieved to have her HOME!  And I'm sure the whole arriving flight saw this large display of emotional girls.

In all of this mess my family, siblings and parents, were willing to do anything and everything to help us get her home.  And I was reminded what family is really all about.  Helping each other through the good times and bad.  And wishing that when I asked for a tender mercy, that I had exercised more faith.  Lesson learned...again.

I'm so glad to have her home!