爱华网1 Someone Waiting
Try to speak more
Conversation Gossiping about a colleague
(A: Sue, an employee in the company B: Linda, a company secretary)
Conversation
A Hi, Linda. Fancy meeting you here.
B Hi, Sue. I'm waiting to check in. Are you flying to New York, too?
A No, I've come to see Michael off. I want to have a talk with him before he leaves.
B But it's about time to check in.
A Yes. I'm a bit worried. I don't know what's wrong with him. Why hasn't he turned up even this minute?
B You know, He never worries about anything.
A Sometimes he seems a bit strange, doesn't he? But he looks like a very efficient man. He never lets you down at work.
B Oh, come on, Sue! Some people say when we need him most, he is nowhere to be found.
A Really? But it seems to me that he's a busy guy, and an important person for the company. That's why I admire him.
B But he strikes me as an unreliable person.
A Unreliable? Um... Oh, that sounds interesting. ...
B Ah, there he comes. I see him running this way.
What are they for?
Actual Words Spoken
a Mary seems to be a nice girl.
b Jan strikes me as rather silly.
c He looks angry today.
d Looks like we're going to be late again.
e The other child looked neglected.
f None of the people I have interviewed so far have impressed me.
g How did Tom's story strike you?
Text
Someone waiting
I am sitting at an airport watching people in the final moments before their loved ones arrive or depart. They are pacing, nervous, looking at one another, touching and not touching. The emotion is intense.
A woman, speaking Spanish, is running in circles trying to gather family members together for a good-bye. Her voice is high-pitched. When the final moment comes before boarding, she wraps her arms around her son, giving him a powerful embrace that should protect him until he returns.
A grandmother and grandson stand at the rail where I am waiting; the people who are supposed to pick them up are late. Two ladies, next to them but unrelated, look up and down the corridor as if scanning an open sea. A mother holds a baby as she kisses her husband. Tears dampen her cheeks. The moment is charged.
At Gate 13, the arrivals are just coming in. "I see her. There she is." Just as poignant, the arrivals fold into the mix of people as if they have been the missing ingredient. There are tears and smiles, pure delight ringing in the laughter of seeing someone who has been gone.
I sit, glancing at my book, waiting for my turn to leave, alone because the ones I love have a different schedule from mine, and the one I am going to see, a daughter, is at the other end of my journey.
I think of other departures and arrivals. I recall seeing my daughter, the daughter I am now going to visit, coming down that narrow corridor with her backpack slung on one shoulder, her overstuffed carry-on cradled in
her arms, her headphones making her oblivious to the stream of people flowing along with her. She was in her first year at university coming home for a holiday in November — the first time since August. I wrapped myself around her as if she had been lost to me.
Today my flight is two hours late. The book I am reading is not as interesting as the people leaving and coming, coming and leaving. A little boy about five is meeting his grandfather for the first time. He looks up and up at the face of a man who is not that tall, except to a child. Joy shines down and up, and I am wondering how one would capture this moment in words or on film.
When my flight is finally called, I gather my books and carry-on. Since there is no one to see me off, I do not look back to see where I have come from. Instead, I think of my husband at work wondering if I have left yet, and my daughter at the other end wondering the same thing.
As I head toward the plane, I find myself remembering yet another arrival and departure. When I was a newlywed, my 91-year-old grandfather died. We had been very close, and one evening, returning from his funeral, I arrived at the airport crying. My husband of only a year was waiting at the gate to take me in his arms. Because of my tears, everyone was looking at us, but I didn't care. Somehow the emotion I felt seemed not at all out of place for the airport.
Life needs to be this important all the time. I wish all the people who went on a journey could come back to find someone waiting for them. I also wish they could leave with someone to see them off. I think of my grandfather and realize that if dying is like this, a passage, then I am unafraid.
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