Airport Au Revoir

The first day you were scared.
We held hands and weaved through the teeming throng.
We found the place and lined up with the others
Then you bravely marched into the school
never once looking back to where I stood.

Now years later, that day forgotten
You are flying away, for the first time without me.
I walk with you to the check-in
and then to the point I cannot pass
where after final admonitions and embraces you enter the screening area.
This time you glance back, wave, smile, turn away
while my eyes brim, as they did that day.