Premonition

We rushed breathless, into the airport yesterday morning. It was to be a wonderful week at home for Thanksgiving with my parents on the East Coast. We were both tired from being up late the evening before, and had taken off from home later than we should have. As we were leaving town, Sam rolled down the window to do something and it stuck. It wouldn't go up or down. Where am I supposed to park this car for a week at the airport with a window that won't close? I said a silent prayer and it rolled up part way. Then a bit more a few minutes later. Finally it was rolled all the way up.
Sam looked wryly at me. "In the six years I've had this car that has never happened."
As we left town we drove into a fog bank hovering over the rolling hills of wheat. It didn't let up for the hour-long drive to the airport. It was so thick in fact, that we couldn't even see the sign for the airport and drove clear past it into another city. When it dawned on us what we had done, we stopped and asked a construction worker for directions. A few minutes later, we pulled up in front of the airport.
Sam noted that he didn't hear any jet engines overhead. In fact, it was deathly quiet, just like it is outside in the early morning after a heavy snow. Running into the airport we encountered crowds of people. All flights had been canceled and people were stranded. It was all on account of the thick fog.
We were re-routed onto a 5:00 a.m. flight the next morning but we thought we should check with the woman at the counter to see if we could leave later in the day instead. There might be a flight out at 1:00, but they had already cancelled two flights that morning. There was no way to know if it would be able to leave, she said. "This fog is here to stay for four or five days. It always is." If we could get out on the one o'clock flight, we could catch a red-eye flight across country to Newark, where we would be able to catch a flight to my folk's city. But she really couldn't say if we could make it or not and she didn't think we could get out in the afternoon flight.
We talked to her for nearly 20 minutes, trying to decide what would be the best thing to do. Nothing was for certain and I had a growing discomfort with the idea of traveling at all. Little did I know that Sam felt the same way. We discussed the fact that Delta pilots had threatened to strike the following Monday--and we could have a terrible time trying to get back to the West Coast. But it was something else in the mix. We both had premonitions of some nameless terrible thing that would happen. Sam later told me that all morning he had imagined what people would say after they learned he had died on this trip! And I had a growing concern of something intangible and dangerous happening to us or near us.
We ended up completely canceling our trip, calling my parents and explaining our concerns. They were wonderful and immediately insisted that we not try to travel at this time. They understood that with the crowded holiday travel schedule, we would not be able to get connecting flights if something went wrong.
I still feel an unspeakable dread about this coming week, as though something horrible might happen, or might have happened to us had we traveled. It is beyond words, really. I just know that we should not go to see my parents right now. Sam knows it. And we have run out of explanations and ideas about why we feel so strongly. We just do. The relief for us was immediate and tremendous.
So Thanksgiving will be spent in a different way for us this year, celebrating with friends whom we love dearly. I hated to think of them all alone this year. But then, my parents will be all alone this year, on the other side of the country.
Thankfully, someday we will know the whole story. Until then, we honor what senses tell us and are grateful for whatever it was that kept us on the ground and in town for these holidays.
Isn't life strange sometimes?