See these two?

 

We took this photo of mum and dad when we were celebrating Dad’s 75^th birthday last weekend. It pretty much epitomises who they are.

Together they are adventurers, always looking for life’s wonders and laughs. Together they are totally and utterly beautifully bonkers. They commandeered these capes from my kids after a trip to Movie World.

This week they jump on a plane and head back to their motherland, England, for a long overdue visit with family. And I will worry about them, just like they have worried about me the countless times I have boarded a plane to the other side of the world.

I will worry that they won’t be comfortable on such a long flight. I will worry that they won’t find the gate for the next plane they must board after their stopover in China. I will worry they will find the long-haul flight and jet lag too gruelling. Worry. Worry. Worry.

But I would never hold them back. Because they never held me back. In fact, there have been times they’ve gently shoved me from my comfort zone.

Two days after 11September 2001 I was due to fly to Europe. My flight was one of the first scheduled to leave the ground after the world’s airspace was closed following that horrific day in New York.

As a nervous flyer I was terrified. I know what happened in New York was not about me. It was about other lives and broken families. But I still felt the fear and confusion that so many of us grappled with as we tried to make sense of horror on a scale unthinkable in the Western World.

The idea of stepping on a plane felt crazy and foolhardy in my anxious and confused mind. As I zipped up my bag and waited for my taxi I made what must have been the fifth phone call that morning to my parents, who live interstate.

“So, you’re sure you think it’s safe to go? Who would do such a thing? How do we know something else isn’t going to happen?” I asked, secretly hoping they would tell me to stay on the ground and put off my flight until we knew more.

But instead they told me to stay calm and stick to my plans.

“Don’t let them win,” my Dad said to me down the phone.

At the airport the air was thick with apprehension as people arrived for their flights, the first to leave the ground in two days. The goodbyes seemed more intense. I remember overhearing a girl on her phone in the check-in line, trying to reassure her mum she’d be fine. But she looked as confused and as anxious as me.

As I watched my bags disappear down the conveyor belt, my boarding pass in hand, my phone rang again. It was my dad.

“Where are you?” he said.

“I’ve just checked in Dad. Should I get my bags back?”

“No. You keep going. You are doing the right thing. You get on that plane and go on that trip and make us proud,” he said.

And obviously I did. Sure, I swung by the bar first for some Dutch courage, but it was my dad’s words that rang in my ears as I stepped on board my flight.

I’m sure they hardly slept that night as I flew across the globe. And now it’s my turn. Later this week, as I lie down to sleep, my thoughts will wonder to them as they travel across the globe.

My inspiring adventurers off on yet another exciting journey together.

And I know they will have a brilliant time.

Because together they are unstoppable.