"Today's the day Isaiah!" The mother croons to the young bright-eyed boy.                     

He cocks his head and his eyebrows raise “Huh?”.
"He's coming home today!"
A smile glows and his hazel eyes light up with undisguised excitement. The pair hurry downstairs to make sure every surface is dusted and all of the pictures shine.

Tears fill her eyes as she holds the picture of the serious looking boy in the navy blue uniform. "Today's the day", she whispers.

The bell rings and the young brown-haired girl pulls her jacket on. She runs out of the 6th grade classroom, hardly listening to the calls of "Merry Christmas." She bursts through the doors, heading outside to meet her sister by the Mary statue, her dimples practically cracking her face. She bounces on the balls of her booted feet while she waits. Looking around for the tell-tale red hair coming out of the junior high hallway.

The bell rings and the young red-haired girl jumps out of her seat. She hurries to her locker, a smile fit to burst off of her freckled face.

She politely returns the calls of "Have a great Christmas!" and shoves her books into her bag as fast as she can.
She walks down the hallway, as close to a run as she can get without sprinting. The snow falls in her face as she looks over to see her sister on her tiptoes looking her way. The younger of the two runs through the snow, clumsily, with her hair brown hair flying in her face. They start the walk, or maybe run, home together, with glee filled eyes.

The bell rings and the young girl slides out of her seat and swings her backpack over her shoulder. She gets to her locker and pulls the necessary books for the homework she has for Christmas break out and shoves them in her overly full bag.

She squeezes through the packed hallways with a call to her friends "I'll text you later!"
Her long, sandy-brown hair that almost falls to her waist swishes behind her as she walks with purpose to her ride, Lauren’s, dark green car. When she slides into the passenger seat she calls “Come on, Lauren, lets go!”
The pale, blonde girl raises her eyebrow, and asks “Who drives this car?”

“You, now get in the car and drive it.” She responds with an overly sweet smile.
“Why do I drive you?”, she mutters as she starts the car.
Across town, a nineteen year old boy walks out of his lecture and checks his phone to see several texts: Boarding the plane right now! Love you and see you soon! -Jake. Then one right after from his mom: Ok! C u soon! Love u!, along with a similar one from his older sister. He rolls his eyes at his mothers ‘text talk’ as she calls it. Once in his apartment he bounds up the stairs to his room and snags his bag thats been packed for almost a week. He wishes a farewell to his roommates and jogs out to the green minivan outside his building.
“Hey Dad.”
“Hey AJ, you excited? It’s been ten months since you’ve seen him right?”
“Yeah, same for Olivia.”
The son turns to his father who looks like he was told Christmas is coming two weeks early. Andrew turns his head so his father can’t see the smile that is threatening to ruin his otherwise nonchalant attitude.

Two hours south a young woman swerves through traffic with her two year old ‘puppy’ in the backseat steaming up her almost twenty year old car. She glances at the clock on the dash every few seconds while her fingers tap a frantic beat on the steering wheel. If it’s 3:45 and I’m two hours away and his flight comes in at 6:20 I should be able to get there in time, maybe. “Don’t worry Ruby, I’m sure we’ll make it in time.”  She says as she accelerates even more, with another look to the clock as though her stare can slow down time.

40,000 ft. above a young man in a camo outfit sits next to an old woman in the aisle seat. He politely asks the woman how she is doing, where she is headed, what she was doing for the holidays. He tried to be courteous to the other passengers but found himself practically shouting so she could hear him as he told her about his family at home waiting for him. His eyes are warm as he tells the older woman about his three-year old brother who is about as sassy as they come. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, he heard the Pilot announce that seat belts should be worn during landing. The plane lands and he turns to help the woman out of her seat, he helps her out of the row onto the main aisle, and reaches into the above carriage to get her rolling bag for her. She takes the bag from him, looks him in the eye and says “Thank you, for humoring an old lady, and for your service to our country.”

The other passengers watch and as the young man walks down the aisle many reach out to shake his hand and thank him for his service.

At the end of the terminal a family consisting of: a proud father, anxious mother, a young lady covered in dog hair, a tall young man, a teenage girl with long hair, a red haired tween, a dimpled girl and a curly red-haired toddler, wait for their Airman to appear.

“I see him!” dimples squeals.

“That is not Jacob” the sassy tween retorts.
“There he is!” the father states with authority.

The young man walks down the terminal with purpose in his stride. He rounds the bend and sees all eight of them waiting there in the middle of the hallway. His eyes instantly make contact with his mother’s. Her eyes are wet as she looks at her boy, all grown up.  His eye then slide to his father whose eyes shine with pride. Then he sees Isaiah, standing barely 2 &½ feet tall but bouncing up and down with his hands pointing at him squealing “Jakie! It’s Jakie! He’s back from the Air Force!”

Jacob picked up his pace until he was feet away, where he crouched down and scooped the little boy up. The little boy puts his short arms around Jacob’s larger, stronger ones and squeezes him as tightly as a three year old can.  “Oh Buddy I missed you” Jacob whispers.

He lets go and the boy pulls back and says “Now we can play Football!” The whole family laughs and Jacob stands up to hug everyone else. First Mom, then dad, then Emma, Liza, Sophie, Olivia and then finally Andrew.  Then he slips his hand into little Isaiah’s.

“Let’s go home.”