What you see in this picture is the long wing of the A380 I am sitting in. Thru my window, you can see on the other side of the wing is a Quantas flight – also a A380 with its humongous wings. Each of the wings is longer than the entire length of the flight the Wright brothers took for the first time!!!

The long quarterly pilgrimage to check on my parents begins now. As I await the Emirates flight from Dallas to Dubai, I am little worried this time. It was not supposed to be this way. My dad’s health had rebounded enough that about two months back, he wanted to go to Puri (an ocean resort with a lot of venerable temples in India). I had booked a nice resort and flight tickets for my parents and my sister’s family as well as my brother’s family. All was set for this trip to India to be spent in the resort with my family. I was not going to go to my parents’ house at all!!

Two weeks back, his kidneys failed and now looks like he has lost 90% of both the kidneys. Forget the trip – he is back to being bedridden again. So, the first worry is to see what condition I am going to see him in. I am hoping he will be slightly better – at least get up on his bed and talk. The challenge is he refuses to undergo dialysis. Let’s see if I can convince him.

But another big worry is how to deal with the nephews and niece. For many of them (and a few adults in the family), this would have been the first time ever they would have flown in a plane. The kids were so excited that they had spread it all over their school among their friends (most of whom have not flown yet either). They are devastated now.

I have to figure out how to make it up to them somehow. 

Finally, there is always the goal of creating intersection points and meeting old friends/acquaintances from my long past and make new friends on the road. A lot depends on my dad’s health though…

And they just called us for boarding… so off we go….