I got a call from home telling me that my maternal grandmother had passed away. I loved her dearly but this was not entirely unexpected. She had lived a long life and I was sure she was ready to go. But I was very worried about my mother. She was very close to her mom, and this was a hard blow to her. I really needed to be there for her. The funeral was going in a couple of days, in Missouri.
I spoke with management about this and they agreed to pay for our round-trip tickets. The company travel agent worked to find us a flight, but there was some kind of festival going on and every flight she checked was fully booked. We asked about getting a flight out of Madrid, figuring we could drive there, but there just wasn't anything that would work; anything available from Madrid required a ton of driving and bad seats that would leave me so tired that I would be useless to Mom. The travel agent finally found a couple of first class seats for us from Bilbao. Now first class on an international flight was really pricey. I hesitated to ask the company to pay for them, but I didn't have any other reasonable option. I realized I needed to agree to book that flight quickly, before someone else got it, so I said we would take it.
Randy and I packed that night and boarded the plane the next day. First class was upstairs, and we were the only people there. I learned that the food in first class is quite a bit different - the stewardess kept offering us all food and drink we wanted, including lots of vodka and caviar. And I was relieved to have enough room to stretch out in; I was able to get some sleep on the flight. I knew that when we landed we would have a long drive to meet the family, and I would need to be alert to support Mom.
I was so glad that I was able to be with Mom; burying her mother must have been like a nightmare to her, but having her family with her made it bearable.
It was a short trip; we flew in one day, attended the funeral the next, and the day after that Randy and I were on another flight back to Spain. Not first class this time, but that was fine.
I spoke with management about this and they agreed to pay for our round-trip tickets. The company travel agent worked to find us a flight, but there was some kind of festival going on and every flight she checked was fully booked. We asked about getting a flight out of Madrid, figuring we could drive there, but there just wasn't anything that would work; anything available from Madrid required a ton of driving and bad seats that would leave me so tired that I would be useless to Mom. The travel agent finally found a couple of first class seats for us from Bilbao. Now first class on an international flight was really pricey. I hesitated to ask the company to pay for them, but I didn't have any other reasonable option. I realized I needed to agree to book that flight quickly, before someone else got it, so I said we would take it.
Randy and I packed that night and boarded the plane the next day. First class was upstairs, and we were the only people there. I learned that the food in first class is quite a bit different - the stewardess kept offering us all food and drink we wanted, including lots of vodka and caviar. And I was relieved to have enough room to stretch out in; I was able to get some sleep on the flight. I knew that when we landed we would have a long drive to meet the family, and I would need to be alert to support Mom.
I was so glad that I was able to be with Mom; burying her mother must have been like a nightmare to her, but having her family with her made it bearable.
It was a short trip; we flew in one day, attended the funeral the next, and the day after that Randy and I were on another flight back to Spain. Not first class this time, but that was fine.
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