About
Hi! My name is Kimberley. I have three lovely children – Chris, who is a senior in high school, and Brian and Emily, fraternal twins, both freshmen). My husband Don is a surgeon. Because he is always on call, he rarely gets to spend time with us. As for me, I’m a pilot.
It’s not as hard as you would think, me working as a pilot and Don busy with his career as a surgeon. The kids are well taken care of. Whenever Don and I both have to go on duty and no one’s going to look after the children, my sister stays with them and makes sure they do their homework. Though single, she’s pretty good in the mom-job, if I do say so myself. She doesn’t tolerate rowdy behaviour nor rude manners.
My work requires me to be on call for a certain period of time. But as much as I try to work out the schedules so I can be with my kids during special occasions, it sometimes couldn’t be helped and so I miss out on some of their special days.
Like during the time of Brian & Emily’s sixth-grade graduation. Don had an emergency call and had to rush to the hospital. I, on the other hand, couldn’t squeeze out of the flight schedule given to me since I’ve been bailing for quite some time and used up my grace points already. The twins were looking forward on me being there to witness their rite of passage from elementary to high school but I couldn’t make it. They sulked for months after that. So I thought of making it up to them by giving them the perfect graduation gift I could think of.
We were supposed to go on a trip to Europe for a month. They were very excited because they were the only kids in their grade to be given a trip like this as a graduation gift. We arrived and had a fun time shopping and sightseeing. But a few days into our trip, I got another call saying I have to be on the next flight because all the other pilots are fully booked. With regret, I told them we had to cut our trip short.
Brian, being the quiet twin, surprised me with his answer. “Fly me home, captain mom.” Emily nodded and smiled in agreement.
I wanted to hug them right then and there. Even after missing out on one of the most important events in their lives, they stood by me. They understood that I had no choice. They trust me enough to know that I’ll always come back to them whenever I could, that no matter how busy their “Captain Mom” is, they will always be the most important people in my life – my family.