Connections

Living near Metro airport is a deliberate choice that matches the life we lead.. Cruising down the highway on a rainy afternoon, we’re connecting with four friends. My cell phone rings as we exit telling me that Anne is already on the ground.

We slip the van into a spot in short term parking and hop a moving walk to the terminal. We grab an elevator down to baggage with a mom and daughters. Anne comes down the escalator and greets us with, “Did you hear that? They're announcing everything in Japanese.”

Of course. This is Metro. All announcements in Japanese, Mandarin, and then English. But the Japanese is what Ann hears. An ethnic Japanese herself, she was left on a doorstep as an infant, adopted by parents from the Netherlands, raised in Japan, and still lives there. In a comic twist of life, she married a good German Mennonite from Lancaster County. East meets West big time.

As we grab her bags and head down to the international arrival, we catch up on soccer camps, mentoring teens and children, all the things that she and her husband do best in Japan. We play the “who have you seen recently” game we all know well.

Sitting in international arrival we’re surrounded a buzz of Hindi, Urdu, Chinese, and Arabic. An elderly Sikh comes out with his baggage cart, followed by his wife in a bright sari. A bundle of burkas come next. A young Japanese girl is greeted by American in-laws. The mother and daughters from the elevator appear to have found a Russian father. A crew of Chinese businessmen bustle out the glass doors.

Then the doors open and we see Thomas. Solid, graying, and very German. We’re enveloped in hugs and handshakes to the older Chinese woman traveling with him.

Thomas, who opened his home to our daughter last summer when she had to be in Hong Kong three weeks before her baby was due. Thomas, whose wife fetched us well after midnight on a hot June night and, tucked us into cool, spotless beds. Thomas, who hosted a rooftop grill for more than 40 of us at summer’s end. Thomas, whose home looks out to the mountains, eagles swirling to the peaks, ocean in the distance across Sha Kok Mei village.

We grab the bags and find an elevator to our one last passenger. Debbie has just arrived from Spain via a quick stop in Chicago. We all troop out of the terminal, grab the moving walkway, and find our way back to the van. Bags stowed, people tucked in, we’re off. The three women have never met but share so much in common that they sound like magpies.

Thomas leans forward and says, “It’s very good to be here, you know.”

Twenty years melt away and I see a much younger man with fewer pounds and more hair. I’m standing at the turnstile in Hong Kong and he hands his little son over the bar for me to mind while he goes off to language school. I see his wife, young and blonde, standing in my kitchen, earnestly asking me to help her learn to live in Asia. Now they are the veterans who meet the newcomers.

Years pass, lives intertwine, we raise each other’s kids. This week he’ll come for dinner to see his honorary nephew. One generation mentors the next so that they in turn can be there for the following generation.

Airports are all about connections.