The story factory we call airports

03/05/2024

| By AfriForum Wêreldwyd

‟I know I promised I wouldn’t lose it at the airport again. But now that the time has come, I can’t remember how to say goodbye civilly. How strange. That some of the most delicate moments of farewell and the raw, intimate emotions that accompany them must take place in a building designed for logistical efficiency. No place for the painful stories that play out in it. Just another story in the story factory we call airports.” – Dr Sulette Ferreira

Also read: Airports are story-making factories

We recently asked our Worldwide friends how they experience the farewell greeting at the airport. They shared their experiences with us.

Lindi-Lee Lock Bekker

Airports used to be a place of excitement and prospect for me, but now, it is the place where my heart is torn from my body. Both our children and their spouses and our grandchild live in New Zealand. That excitement when they arrive is indescribable. But all the time, you know that you will be standing there again in two or three weeks with the opposite feelings. That last feeling of the hands, the last hug, the last smell of your child’s hair before they start walking, is horrible. You see no one else but them, and the tears flow uncontrollably. You wave until you can’t see them anymore. Then you turn around in despair and walk back to the car to return to an empty, quiet house filled with memories. You don’t know when you’ll see them again.

Hannetjie Jordaan

Both our children, their spouses and our grandchildren live abroad. What makes it worse is that they don’t live in the same country. We never visit all together anymore. Someone is always missing in action. It is rough on one’s mind.

Anne-Marie Strydom Bronkhorst

My sister is my only living family. We greet each other quickly with, ‟Bye. See you (hopefully) soon.” When I was there in July, we literally had a minute to say goodbye when my airport kombi arrived at her house. A quick hug and kiss, and there I go. We can no longer deal with the long, drawn-out ‟goodbyes.” It’s too emotional for both of us.

I can’t say goodbye at the airport. It’s too sad. I still cry every time the plane takes off in South Africa, and you don’t know when you will see each other again. It’s nice to wait for people at the airport, but saying goodbye remains emotionally heavy.
Ronel van Zyl

Elmarie Kemp

After 24 years, I am still so sad. It never gets easier. In the last years of my parents’ lives, I said goodbye to them at home and my friends took me to the airport. We were still tearful, but not as bad. I am incredibly grateful that both our children are with us in Canada, one 150 km away and the other in our city. We and our parents were the two sad generations of parents and children who had to say goodbye. My heart hurts so much for my friends whose children live overseas. I am privileged to have two friends’ children and grandchildren close by. Now, I am their Canadian mother and grandmother. Our Christmas table got bigger.

Tania Nel

We have been in New Zealand for 17 years now. My mother and father never go to the airport with us; it is too sore and heartbreaking. Saying goodbye to my sister, brother-in-law and children at the airport breaks my heart. We usually go early, eat together, walk to the terminal, and say goodbye quickly. It’s never easy.

Tania Schnetler

When we emigrated, my father wept at the airport. I still remember how he wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. It was heartbreaking. Fortunately, I see him every year.

For more than twenty years, we have been abroad, and our parents have been in South Africa. Old people grow older without children and grandchildren. Grandchildren are third-culture kids who grow up without family. And all this for the hope of a better future for the coming generations.
Surette Smuts

Néll Delport

We rent a car and drive to the airport all by ourselves.

Susan van der Walt

It is a heartbreaking moment that feels like death. After 15 years of saying goodbye at airports, the pain is no better.

I always wonder if this is the last time I will say goodbye to my children in Brisbane. My daughter weeps. I am brave until the plane is in the air; then the tears start streaming. Here, everyone is happy and excited; there, it is gloomy and quiet. My friend’s son died in a car accident in Dubai. She had to fly to Durban with the coffin because they don’t do cremations there.
Tertia Maakal Kuhn

Madeleine O’Neill Karele

I have lived in France for 23 years now. I tried to visit South Africa every year to go home. It’s so sad. With the arrival, we all cry with joy, holding and hugging each other again. And then the goodbye … It’s the most painful moment, wondering if we will ever see each other again. The pain and tears on my mother’s face because she doesn’t have her children with her and can’t see her grandchildren grow up … Until that last goodbye when I knew it was the last time I could hug and hold her. Airports are some of the saddest places for me.

John McDermott

When time runs out in life, you make peace with the last time they walked through the gates for the final flight, when you knew there probably wouldn’t be another hello and goodbye. It was so irrevocable, almost like when the coffin descends into the grave.

Hannetjie Jordaan

Airports are the place of the two most extraordinary extremes of emotions: being out of your skin with joy at the reunion and feeling like your heart is being ripped out of your body with the goodbye. The older one gets, the worse it gets. It never gets easier. We have been doing this for years now. However, we are grateful that we could still see them every year.

I said goodbye to my father when he flew to America in 2018 and I to New Zealand a few days later. That was the last time I could hug my father. He suddenly died in 2021.
Cornelia Jansen

Irma Montgomery

It’s very traumatic! It’s been 15 years now, and it’s still sad.

Rina Pretorius

The day I dropped my husband off at the airport, I knew in my heart that that farewell was unlike any other. It was final. We got divorced soon after that. That day at the airport, I wept passionately and then made peace with my fate.

Zelda Hattingh

The reunion is emotional, with tears of joy! But saying goodbye is hard. It feels as if your heart is being ripped out when you say goodbye. I was always strong, but this time was the worst ever. It broke my heart to say goodbye to my daughter at the airport and to see her weeping on the other side of the customs gate while there was no one to comfort her.

John McDermott

I said goodbye to my grandchildren at the airport—a nine-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. They playfully ran and hung on to everything while their mother quickly repacked bags and left some behind – just to leave the country quickly. You say goodbye as if you will see them again the day after tomorrow!

But now, eight years later, it has sunk in: It was the last goodbye at an airport! It reminds me of a prison door that slammed for a long-term sentence. Now I realise I must make peace. Nothing will ever be the same. They are gone forever.

I don’t think of it as a goodbye but as a till-we-meet-again. I don’t get sad because I know we will see each other again; I just have to be patient.
Florence Taljaard

Linda Cilliers

Sometimes I feel it’s just not acceptable to have four children and six grandchildren and all of them are abroad. I have shed more tears at airports than at any funeral.

Suzette van Jaarsveld

I have to say goodbye at the airport; otherwise, it feels like they’re not really gone. I wait until their plane takes off before I weep. Then I wipe my tears because I know they are better off. And then I long and cry until I can visit them.

Lila Vermaak

I never let my parents take me to the airport. I always ask friends. We greet somewhere else, as we would greet when I still lived there. I don’t know what I will do if they have to say goodbye to me at the airport, and I’m too scared to find out.