I'd heard the stories of mothers sobbing their eyes out as they said good-bye to sons or daughters there in that big meeting room... of mothers wanting to burn the whole building down due to the grief they felt they were put through inside.
Not me. I loved the MTC when I was a missionary there. I loved it when I worked there three years later as a Spanish missionary teacher. For me, it had been a wonderful place on so many levels. I was thrilled that my son was going to have the chance for similar treasured experiences of his own... both in the complex and later in New Zealand for two years.
I simply did not cry. There was nothing to cry about.
Each Christmas and Mother's Day for the past two years, I received the expected phone calls from my son. I did not cry. Not during nor after the calls. (Well, actually I did get a little misty once after a phone call because I was feeling nostalgic, but I still maintain it wasn't a real cry.)
Each birthday and Christmas that passed and he was absent, I did not cry. Why would I? There was nowhere else I would have rather him been than in New Zealand experiencing whatever life and eternity had for him to experience. I have been happy for him and about him for the past two years.
And then, December 22, 2009 came.
I stood at the airport waiting to see him arrive home. The Cap'n, Jon and Spencer stood with me. His flight took a long time to disembark. Forty-five minutes after it had landed, it still hadn't emptied. It was a mob scene of missionary families. Elders and Sisters all returning the week before Christmas.
Let's face it, the brethren in Salt Lake know better than to subject themselves to the wrath of mothers denied their children for three Christmases instead of the agreed-upon two. There's a lot of wisdom in the Missionary Department. A good portion of that wisdom is evidenced in the flurry of flights home the days leading up to Christmas.
As time crawled by, I became gradually aware of the angst in my soul. It transformed from angst to full-blown impatient anxiety as the minutes ticked by. What if he had missed his flight? No, that couldn't be right because the other mothers waiting for Delta Flight 1184 from Los Angeles were also still there... chewing their nails and pacing the floor.
Every suit and tie caused me to crane my neck and hold my breath. As if to taunt me, there were six missionaries on the same flight, all returning from Taiwan. They walked down the hallway long before my son did. Finally... finally... I saw him. It's kind of a blur. I don't really even know who saw him first. Probably Spencer or Jon. But it didn't matter. I was further ahead of everyone else. No one had a prayer of a chance of beating me to him.
He walked the same. He looked around the same. I saw him coming. And, finally, I cried. I cried in relief because he was back. I cried in gratitude because he had gone and that which had mattered to me had mattered to God. I cried because as he stood there, in my mind's eye he was instantly going from one year old to three years old to five years old to eight years old to twelve years old to all the teenage years at once. A blur of images my mind seemed to need to move through in order to get to the point where I could see him standing there in front of me at 21 years of age.
And I cried for all of that too.
