Thursday, October 11, 2012

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.

1 comment:

mhutsell said...

Tears. Good byes are only on this side of heaven and I am so glad. I dislike them VERY much. I never know if it is harder leaving or being left. Being left feels harder I think. Everything is quiet where there was laughter and fullness. But, as we all know, if we didn't have deep loving relationships with people we'd never know the pain of saying good bye! Glad you enjoyed your time. Praying a year flies by. :)