Hello goodbye

My oldest daughter sobbed in the backseat as we drove away from the airport nearly a year ago. After two months of sharing life with her grandmother -- my mother --- at our home during my complicated pregnancy and delivery, the season had ended and our newly expanded family was on its own. I blinked back my own heartache as I turned to look at my daughter gasping for breath in the backseat. "Goodbyes are always hard, Mommy," she choked out; and at her premature observation my own tears began to fall.

We're preparing to move to Kenya later this year; and amid the fears and excitement I have for my children as I prepare them for this transition, the goodbyes concern me most of all.

I'm terrible at goodbyes; unfortunately, I think I'm getting worse at them as I age. Years of cultivating a gentle family life here in Colorado have helped me to forget how it felt to regularly leave places and people behind, but as we slowly uproot our family, I begin to remember:

hugging friends for a moment longer, then rushing through the rest of the ritual lest we lose our nerve 

waving at loved ones until I could no longer see them, willing myself to sear their faces into my memory 

huddling in dim airport seats, shutting my eyes to quell the burning torrent behind my eyelids 

lingering in steamy showers -- often my only chance at privacy -- where streams of water would mingle with my tears, giving life to my sorrow and cleansing it all at once

. . .

Then I look at my sweet, settled children and wonder what I am doing to them. With every goodbye now a precursor to The Big Goodbye -- the one when we board a plane to Africa and officially leave behind the only life my children have known -- the panic begins anew for me, this time on behalf of my children. I've held my breath as we've sold our home and cleared out the toy chests, searching my chidren's faces for pain and waiting to see if we're making a mistake.

Instead they remind me of the joy of this life that I, and now they, have been given. "Hooray," they squealed as we moved into a temporary townhouse half the size of our previous home. "A new house! Can we sleep in our sleeping bags?" Their favorite game of the moment is playing airplane, packing up their pink carry-ons and wheeling them around as they pretend to fly across the globe. Their pride in their new passports and curiosity about other cultures -- before they have ever left this country -- make me wonder if just maybe this is in their blood.

And when they have gone to bed and I spend an extra moment gazing at my children before switching off the nightlights, the One who has brought me through each goodbye and washed away my every tear watches them with me and quiets the storm of my heart. Yes, there will be grief; but we are Loved and we are Known and our family will be fine. With hope brimming, I slip into bed beside my husband and dream, too, of the adventure that lies ahead.