Seven Years Ago from Yesterday

June 28, 2002.  My plane landed O’Hare airport at around 3:00 p.m.  I just woke up from an hour nap that felt like a 10-hour REM.  Little did I know, that was my introduction to jet lag.

I was all nerves.  There must have been literally 10,000 people swarming O’Hare that day.  I was sooooo excited to meet my new husband!  It had only been a week since we last saw each other, parting from the Peninsula Hotel in Makati, each on our way to our respective transportation lines without any idea when we were going to see each other again.  We had just been together all week for our honeymoon after our wedding celebrations on June 15 in Baguio.  He was headed back to the States and I was headed back to Baguio.  I remember that day as a sad sad day!

Not knowing when my visa was coming in the mail, I quickly decided to go home to Bontoc for a couple days with my family.  Three days into my stay there, I received a call from my mother-in-law saying that my visa arrived in their mail that day and that she had been talking with Steve about procuring a ticket for me for a Friday flight, June 28.  As Providence had planned, my in-laws were scheduled for a flight that same day to the States for their furlough.  My MIL suggested that I immediately hop on the next bus to Baguio because I will be traveling to Manila with them that Thursday.  Wow!  Talk about a God-thing ha?

Friday afternoon, exactly one week from the day Steve and I said goodbye, I was at O’Hare about to see him again!  And there he was at the waiting area with a big boquet of flowers in his hands and the biggest smile I have ever seen on his face!  It was a beautiful day, that day.  June 28, 2002.

In our excitement, neither one of us remembered to take pictures at the airport.  But that’s okay.  Because I will always carry that day, June 28, 2002, as a photo memory in itself.