#MicroblogMondays: Homecoming mantra

I'm generally not a nervous flyer... but I do tend to tense up a bit during takeoff and landings.  (Once I'm in the air, or on the ground again, I'm generally okay.)  And for years and years, whenever I was flying "home" to visit my parents, I would repeat a silent mantra to myself, from the time the plane started to taxi down the runway until it was safely aloft in the air:  "Take me home safe to my mother... take me home safe to my mother."  

As the plane pulled away from the terminal on our recent flight west, my eyes filled with tears and I had to pull out a kleenex from my pocket, as I realized:  I can't say that any more:  I have no mother to travel "home" to any more.  And to say "Take me home safe to my dad," while accurate, seemed a bit jarring after so many years.  

"Take me home safe," I finally repeated to myself instead. (Works both going there and coming "home" to the Toronto area too.)  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.