Leaving and staying

...and just like that, my parents are gone. My kids and John and I won't see them for a year. Now that they have arrived in Thailand, I guess that means they really aren't staying. I was kind of hoping for a finally-fortunate glitch in African infrastructure that (oops) kept them here indefinitely.

Boo. Sniff.

Yes, there were some tears on both sides. Seeing my parents cry through my own tears and C. weeping for a good fifteen minutes was, well, hard.

But it was a great trip. (More photos to come.) And I'm realizing now that they've left, I feel like this is more home--a continuingly fuzzy concept. This was helped by us being the host, the (admittedly green) "experts," the ones with routines and friends and knowledge of where to go/which drawer the teabags are in/what that gesture just meant and owning things like hot pads or pillowcases. When they left, I didn't go with them; I stay here, because I live here now. Someone else close to me has seen it and verifies that I live here and what we do here. Plus, I'm liking it here. My kids are thriving. My folks really liked it, too. Maybe we'll get to be next-door neighbors for a millenia or two in heaven.