An Emotional Welcome Home

I travel quite a bit.  Mostly within FL and GA.  Yesterday, while sitting in the West Palm Beach airport, I saw this attractive young lady in a bright yellow dress walk up to the sitting area with two older people, who must have been her parents.  I didn’t think anything about it.  

We sat there for a while.  When the plane that I was waiting on to take me back to Atlanta came to the gate and the passengers started to deplane, an Army soldier walked up the jetway in uniform.  

The young lady in the yellow dress stood up and as he cleared out of the jetway, he dropped his pack and the two of them raced to embrace each other.  At that moment, the bustling airport seemed to fade into slow motion and then came to a complete stop.  Everyone in the terminal saw what was going on and all who were seated stood up and everyone began applauding and cheering as the reunited couple remained embraced for what seemed like an hour.  While only taking breaks for a few kisses, the couple did not want to let go of each other.

I could see bystanders wiping tears from their eyes as the couple finally broke their embrace.  The couple wiped tears from each other’s eyes and began to walk arm in arm down the terminal.

As they walked away, this observer, and I believe many others, felt as if we had just witnessed a sacred moment.  Sacred because these two lovers are back together.  More importanlty, sacred because her lover came back walking off the plane instead of being carried off the plane in a coffin.  And sacred because of the many, way too many lives, that were sacrificed so that they could have this emotional reunion.