Hangin’ In Hong Kong

Have you read – Travelling With A Friend Part 1?

The airport McDonald’s is bubbling with energy. People make it through the winding wait with steaming food in hand – they attempt to find chairs and tables in a space overflowing. I find seating for three and arrange our suitcases around us like dominoes stacked close, then turn to smile at the family we are sharing a table with. It’s rare to get your own at a fast-food joint in Hong Kong – one of the most crowded cities on earth. I keep a lookout for two more seats, hoping to find them before Brian comes with trays of food.

By the time he joins me I am warming up to being here. I enjoy hearing the clatter of diverse languages and seeing the dress from different corners of the earth.

“I see signs for the MTR,” I say to Brian. “I remember holding the boys’ dimpled hands and carrying Blossom in the baby carrier on that subway.” He smiles. The boys called it the ‘emptyR’ but it’s quite the opposite. With standing room only, their whimpers could almost always get them a seat. But once the subway car was packed so tight that when we all squeezed in place, the doors closed on Brian’s shoulders. Thankfully they immediately opened again. People shuffled in just a bit more to make room for us.

Now again, Hong Kong is making room for our family. Three of us sit at one table, two at another. We are here together, in a place so full of memories.

*

Once we settle into the guesthouse I leave, joining Hong Kong’s masses on the subway and then on the streets. Each bend, stop and straight is filled with people. I slow, my eyes scanning the buildings that surround me in search of the hospital. People brush past. If I can’t find a place to be alone in the mainland I know I won’t find one here.

I arrive and enter my friend’s room. She is lying in her bed by the window, recovering from major surgery. I expect her to be weary – she looks alert. Being on the 9th floor, she is enjoying the view of the hills with sky-rises settled in the valleys. I am genuinely happy to see her.

“You look great.”

She smiles. “My surgery went well. It finished in just over half the time they expected.”

“That’s amazing! Were you scared?” I’m sure that I would have been terrified.

I take a seat beside her and we talk. She tells me about her procedure. We catch up on the months since we’ve been together.

I warm up her soup.

We anticipate spending time together over the days to come and I look forward to getting to know her sister, her solitary family member who came from Canada for the surgery.

My friend recovers quickly. “It’s no wonder,” she says. “So many people have been supporting me.”

I am glad that I get to be one of these people, that I get to be a friend in the time when absence of family is most keenly felt.

Over the next few days as her strength returns, we talk more. She plays cards with me and my kids and I spend time chatting with her and her sister.

“I wasn’t ready to travel yet.” My voice catches in my throat as I feel the urgency of my need for security.

They grew up overseas. They understand.

“Home is wherever you are,” her sister says.

And now, surrounded by memories, clustered close to Brian and our kids, and visiting friends, I do feel at home.

I thought the timing of our trip was all wrong, but it turned out to be perfectly right.