Five Minute Friday: Unexpected

It’s Five Minute Friday, and today’s topic is “Unexpected.” Write for five minutes, ignore your inner editor, and have fun!

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Jonathon’s always been one to play it safe. Make no waves. Take the path of least resistance.

So when he came to me last October and said, “Mom, I’ve got an opportunity to help fly a plane from somewhere back East to California,” my first thought was, “Yeah, right! My homebody son actually leave the comfort of his room, leave my home-cooked meals, to get in a tin can with a stranger and spend several days doing nothing but pointing it west for hours at a stretch?”

He made an unexpected choice.

A week later, my husband drove Jonathon to the San Francisco International Airport. And left him. That, alone, was unexpected. Always before, he’d accompanied our children into the airport and waited until their plane took off. This time, Daniel headed home, oblivious to the myriad complications that could occur…none of which actually did. (That, too, was unexpected!)

My first glimpse at a photo of the plane: unexpectedly small. An unexpected storm that grounded them for three days.

The growing knot of fear that swelled into an unexpected volcano of anxiety as the days stretched to a week and beyond.

The unexpected transparency of the wings as the duct-tape-and-tinker-toys “plane” flew overhead.

Completely unexpected:

I bade farewell to a boy when Jonathon left for Milwaukee.

He returned home — emerging from that tiny plane nine days later — a man.