It was time to go.

Sent mother and brother off to England (en route to the island) this morning, and thus ends their two month visit. The airport taxi arrived at 9 a.m sharp, and it took mom exactly twelve minutes for her Northern shyness to wear off and to decide to talk about death.

Ma: "Well, your card says you're Leif Eriksson?"

Driver: "Yupp"

Ma: "Well, we're flying off to England."

Driver: "Ah!"

Ma: "Not too excited about flying, what with all these bombs going off everywhere."

Driver: "Yupp. I remember that whole September 11th incident. And then these three plane crashes in recent days."

Ma: "Me too. Don't think anything will happen to us, but when you have to go, you have to go."

Driver. "It's uncommon to crash though, but since so many people die all at the same time, it's more of a tragedy than them going off one by one".

Ma: "When it's your time...."

I had to intervene. They were minutes away from scaring themselves into a frenzy and forming their very own support group right there and then. I am Jack's voice of reason.

Did they have to discuss a topic as morbid as plane crashes, I asked.

The car lapsed into an uncomfortable silence after ma agreed that the conversation topic might be a bit unfitting. The driver apologised as well, for safe measure. It took exactly two minutes for mom to find a new conversation topic.

Ma: "I mean, more people die in traffic accidents anyway. We could crash and explode right here right now, if it were our time."

God Bless her heart.