It's OK to Cry in the Airport
a Guest Post by Lily
At Frankfurt International Airport on Wednesday morning, I was running through the terminal so fast that I couldn’t breathe, my lungs hurt, my legs ached and my heavy carry-on bag was slipping out of my fingers. I didn’t even realize I was crying until I couldn’t see anything in front of me at all, just salty blurry colours.
Rewind 48 hours to the text message from my mother: Grandpa passed away. Please call me.
Families are complicated. And in recent years, my mom’s family has had its share of complications. This meant that I hadn’t seen my Grandfather in a long while. It was Monday. I spoke with my mom. Had a client meeting. Spent the rest of the day working from home. The funeral was Thursday. She was flying out from San Francisco. I decided I would just stay in London. After all, I had work and commitments. Life is busy. Families are complicated. How ridiculous, right? But in shock, denial, sadness, anger – whatever else it was, I just blocked the whole thing out. Somehow convincing myself that if I didn’t treat it like a big deal, then it didn’t have to be devastating. Stay distracted, said my gilded grieving ego.
I woke up the next morning with a million little knives in my stomach, realizing how selfish this was, and booked the first affordable last minute flight I could find, but deep down I still didn’t really want to go. Avoiding is always easier. You know how to dull those knives.
But this is how I ended up in Frankfurt. Transiting. Running. As fast as I could make myself, bags in tow, Vans coming unlaced. Terminal A to Terminal C. Impossible race. My LHR-FRA leg had been delayed and now I had a twelve minute window to make the connecting Air China flight that would land me in Beijing at 6 am on the morning of my grandfather’s 11 am funeral. There was no way I would make it.
I was running so hard through that fucking terminal that I couldn’t breathe. And then somehow, I was crying. And then I couldn’t stop crying.
Sometimes it’s only in the moment when you know you are going to miss your flight that your heart finally lets itself admit to you how badly it wants to be on it.
My grandfather taught me how to use a Montblanc fountain pen and a traditional Chinese calligraphy brush. His writing was beautiful in both languages. He kept a separate pair of glasses in every single room because he hated losing and looking for them all the time. He loved to wear suits, but he loved even more to sit at the dining table in his undershirt. When I was sick and couldn’t go outside, he used to carry me around for hours back and forth from room to room of the house, pretending we were on an exciting trip. He was wickedly good at ‘Go’ chess (but sometimes he let me win). And he loved food more than anyone. “Eating this will make you smart,” was Grandpa’s eternal catchphrase with me, and it applied to anything I might have decided to be picky about that day – from braised fish to jianbing to filet steak to watermelon juice. One time he had some kiwi fruits at the house and they were so divinely good that season, I ate all three in a row. Fruit almost too ripe to touch. The next day he brought a whole enormous crate home from the market and together we ate them all in a couple hours. Lips inflamed, fingers stained, sweet green syrup all down my face – I was sick for days, but it was the best thing ever. Excessive maybe, but I was his granddaughter. And he never let me go without.
I couldn’t fucking miss this flight. I couldn’t miss saying goodbye. And so I couldn’t stop sobbing as I ran to the gate.
They were closing the doors when I got there. I tried to pull myself together to finesse the airline attendant but before I said anything they took one look at me and let me through without even checking my boarding pass. Perks of being a messy crier, I guess. Disheveled hair, mascara tears, no questions asked.
I made it just in time.
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I don’t want to talk too much about the funeral, because in a way it was sort of taken over by official ceremony stuff and the obligatory guests and decorum relevant to his title, but I do want to write about the man my grandfather was.
And I know this might all seem terribly out of place because this is my bad bitch bff’s blog that I guest-write about dating and relationships and ‘being a hustling independent girl in the city’ (TM) and all that trite contrived Carrie Bradshaw crap you know we pretend not to love… But the thing is, all these posts are universally about figuring out what it is that we want. And I learned a long time ago that I only figure it out when I write it out. Who knew a journalist drop-out/advertising boss-lady still has a poet’s heart. Those cold, postmodern narratives that I write under pseudonym for artsy literary journals, or the travel book commissions I do every 16 months… they just don’t cut it for this.
Because what I want to say is: My grandpa changed the world. Changed history. Changed more lives than I could ever know. Not through money or conflict or politics or spirituality or that kind of hopelessly naïve raggedy-ass white-hippie-guilt humanitarianism we usually associate with ‘changing the world’. But through the pursuit of excellence, by holding himself and his work and his dreams and innovations to the highest benchmark. Through an unwillingness to settle or compromise his standards and visions and ideas. And of course, by finding the person who he could achieve all of it with; my grandmother.
He designed the first reinforced concrete dam and hydropower station in China. Led the design and construction as chief engineer on dozens of other large-scale water conservancy, hydropower, hybrid power and hydraulic structural projects over the course of his career. At a time, over 60% of the rural Chinese countryside had electricity for the first time because of my grandfather’s dams. And he did it all with my late grandmother. An extraordinarily beautiful and strong woman, devoted wife, caring mother, structural engineer extraordinaire, my grandpa’s perfect balance: meticulous where he might be messy, flexible where he was stubbornest; partner in life, love, and work to a great man who pursued only the best.
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All this to say, it is currently 3 am on Saturday, I have appallingly bad jetlag and am drinking chrysanthemum tea in a Beijing hotel lobby thinking about my grandmother’s hands, her drafting papers, her sewing machine, my grandpa’s glasses, his beloved bicycle, his quiet laugh, the old house in Tianjin, the summertime, the mosquito screens on the balcony, the long walks to the university, the lotus ponds. I am thinking about all this, and about what I want. Life. Love. Career. Home.
Sometimes it’s only in the moment when you know you are going to miss your flight that your heart finally lets itself admit to you how badly it wants to be on it.
The last few months have happened so fast. I gave up a lot of things in pursuit of a version of happiness I just had to have. With no regrets, but… now that I have it, I can admit that I’m still not there yet. There’s so much more that I want. London is still wonderful – worth every painful sacrifice I have made. But there are more cities to love and places to go and accomplishments to achieve inside of me still. And while work is going great too, it’s just a great job, it’s not my lifelong dream. And honestly, thank god! I mean, imagine how sad it would’ve been – if after all of that, after giving everything I had, I found out my real dream this whole time was to work for someone 9 to 5 in an office for the rest of my life? Thank god I still want much more.
And being on my own in my lovely home? It’s been pretty great too. Surrounded by my beautiful books and my beautiful clothes and my dank ass weed, with a different friend visiting from a different country every week. But remember how I wrote before about relationships and kings and queens A woman who makes a man a servant, is a princess. A woman capable of making a man a king, is a queen. But what if there is a third one? What do you call the woman who is capable of making you a god among men? I don’t know either… But I think at this point that’s the only woman I really want to be. My grandparents knew this – find the person who makes you the most excellent elevated version of yourself you could ever become. You will conquer the world with them beside you, because they will have conquered yours. Just don’t let your ego stop you from getting on the flight.
I know life is already beautiful. I know they think I have it all.
But when I was a little kid, my grandfather taught me best: keep pursuing your own excellence, never settle for less.
No matter what, I do not want a life or a journey or a relationship that is less than extraordinary, less than exhilarating, even if it is hard at times, even if there are deep lows and long lulls. I want a life that is in both equal parts wonderfully cozy and unbearably thrilling; both peacefully simple and lusciously extravagant; socially stimulating and intellectually challenging. I want the whole crate of kiwi fruits. I want excellence in excess, in extremes. All the ambition and achievement and success needed to feel fulfilled and actualized, with enough free time and spontaneity to also feel unburdened and uninhibited. An airplane on my skin. A home in every place I love. A person capable of conquering the world with. A life that never quits. And I will not let myself go without.
