Are you expecting anyone over this Christmas? Many people need to take a business trip on the holidays and this is especially hard for their families. Growing up, my father had to travel a bit, and the traveling would continue up to the holiday season. As a kid whose father was getting on planes every week, I adapted to the fact that my father was not around that much.
The first couple of years were the most complicated. My father had a small business close to home, so I could go and see him every day. I would go to help him after school, and that gave me the chance to share some quality time with him. I was very used to it, so I didn’t think that much of it. That was until I talked to my friends and they would tell me how much they would miss their fathers.
I had a friend called Mark and his father had a top-executive position at a pharmaceutical company. He was the one whose father was away the most. He had all this freedom that most of us wanted, but on the other hand felt lonely. His mother took him to counseling because it got to a point where his grades started to become affected. After about 6 months into counseling, his grades and mood started to gradually come up. There were many Christmas dinners that his dad would not be home for, and all they could do was talk on the phone.
Things were not as bad for the rest of us, but our fathers would make the occasional trip over the holidays. At times, he would call us to say that his trip would have to be delayed because of the projects he was working on. There were others where he would give us the good news that he would be coming home sooner than planned.
Regardless the case, he would tell us to just wait at home for him to arrive. We didn’t like to do that. We would go to meet him at the airport every single time. Our family had always been very close, so we had grown up used to being around one another. I remember my father coming out of the plane and meeting us at one of the gates. His face would always light up when he saw my mother and us.
This would make our Christmases even better. The following video is a reminder for all of us who were or still are in a comparable situation. In a world where grown-ups need to work very hard to meet the demands that their positions imply, family is the one thing that really matters. You can have one or ten different jobs, but remember that your family is the one who will be waiting for you, every year at every gate of life!
