Writing about traveling yesterday reminded me of traveling with my brother…

Years ago, in the mid-2000s, my brother generously took me on a trip to Barcelona. For some reason that I can’t remember now, we had to take separate flights both into and out of Spain. Since we didn’t have smartphones at the time, and international phone plans were expensive, we needed to figure out how we would find each other once we landed. We decided that we would meet at the arrivals exit. But just in case, we got walkie-talkies to call each other.

Sure enough, when I arrived I found that it was going to be a little more difficult to locate my brother than I anticipated. It turned out there was more than one terminal. I mean, why wouldn’t there be. I found my brother’s flight info and of course, he was landing in the other terminal. How would we find each other now? I took out my walkie and tried it out. I had no idea if it was working or not, but I could not reach my brother. I tried it again and again. Nothing. I was afraid we’d really lose each other if I walked out of the building, but what choice did I have?

I started walking toward the other terminal, my heart beating just a little too fast, my eyes searching. What was I going to do if I couldn’t find him? Did I even have the hotel information? Why did we have to fly separately? Within minutes, maybe even seconds, a miracle occurred: I found my brother!

Epilogue: My brother had forgotten his walkie-talkie. (insert big sister eye roll)