Airports and Mothers

My relationship with airports is… ambiguous.

I love to travel. I hate packing. I have never liked goodbyes.

I love arriving early when I know my sons are coming —even if that means dodging airport parking.

Since I was little, airports have been part of my story. I used to go back and forth to welcome my mother, who lived abroad. In Latin America, when someone arrives or leaves, they never arrive alone: everyone shows up. Cousins, uncles, siblings, nieces and nephews… a whole crowd.

And I, the daughter, wanting that moment just for myself. Sometimes a quiet, unexplainable feeling would take over me. And the goodbyes… those were a nightmare.

Strangely, when I was just 10 years old and traveled alone to meet her in Spain, the airport stopped being an enemy and became an ally. It became a bridge.

Years later, as a mother, I lived another scene. I was traveling with my son —six, maybe nine months old, I don’t quite remember—. After changing his diaper and thinking, “everything is under control,” within seconds my beautiful baby had escaped the stroller, his diaper already asking for another change, ready to climb his own version of freedom.

Result: a second change, zero dignity… and hours sitting in the airport, accepting the moment as a life lesson.

By the way, all of this happened in the same airport in the country where my two sons now live. Coincidence… or one of those quiet jokes life likes to play.

The truth is, airports and I will always have this relationship —a kind of love… with a touch of elegant resentment.

They fill me with joy when, through the arrival gates, I see my children appear. They are the ones who gave me the most important title of my life: being a mother.

And yet, they leave me with a knot in my throat every time I have to let them go.

Not because I want to hold them back. On the contrary. I feel happy, grateful, and deeply proud to see them grow, move forward, and build their own paths —even if that means living far away, in other countries.

I think many mothers feel the same: we don’t want to hold them back… we just wish, sometimes, that airports were a little easier… or that teleportation existed, even if only to have dinner with them, hold them close, and watch a movie on a Wednesday night.

And because I know I am not the only one, today I want to say:

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers. But especially to those who know airports well.

To those who look at departure boards with a mix of pride and silence. To those who are always waiting for the next arrival.

And to those who know that, no matter how much time passes and no matter how much our children become men and women, there will always be a moment —as they walk through a door— when we see them again as five-year-olds, walking toward us.

And we hear again the word we love the most in the world:

Mom.

Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers of the P’Cante world. P’Cante.