Look Back, You Come Back….

Life here is good. Have I mentioned that yet?

I can promise you that I did not grow up thinking that I would one day – come hell or high water – move to Ohio, but here we are and here turns out to be a pretty good place. Mainly, I would say, it’s because of the people. We have found ourselves in a neighborhood teeming with kids, dogs, runners, and big leafy trees where the people are warm and kind and no longer constantly point out that I talk funny. Geoff walks to work. Grayson goes to a great school. The kids have a yard to play in. The neighbours like French Martinis. We have good friends. So – for now – we get to be proud of where we’re from and happy about where we are living. Who knows how long any of this will last and where we’ll be a few years from now. For now, we are here and here is good.

Isn’t that very zen of me? Very zen and very mature, I think. What’s that sound? Oh, that’s just me, maturing…

Here, however, is the hardest part. I drove my parents to the airport this morning.  All the way there I chatted with my Dad and listened to my Mum telling Willan stories in the back seat. I thought about what a wonderful weekend we had just spent together. I thought about my Dad’s new iphone Yahtzee addiction and all the gardening I got to do with my Mum. I thought about watching Blackpool beat Cardiff on Saturday morning with my Dad. He grinned about that one all weekend. I thought about the way we celebrated May Two Four (in great style, I must say) and how the kids ran downstairs to see Nanny and Grandad first thing every morning. I thought about my Dad walking Grayson to school and my Mum building Lego at the dining room table. I thought about Willan making my Mum “play ‘Nanny’” which was really just a re-enactment of the moment he saw her coming through the airport gate. Over and over, he ran across the family room into her arms shouting, “Nanny!” and she would swing him up into the air. I thought about the number of times Grayson claimed that this was the best day ever.

How could I have a weekend like that and not feel grateful? Naturally, a large part of me was feeling very grateful for these visits of dedicated time that are full of celebrations both large and small. But, I have to tell you, a very insistent piece of me was also stamping her feet, arms crossed, bottom lip stuck out, shouting “I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO!” because that piece of me is really still just a little girl who thinks her Dad is the strongest man in the world and her Mum can do anything. That little girl wants, quite badly, to live close to her family and yet there hasn’t been a time in the last twenty years that we have all been within visiting-for-dinner distance. My parents raised us to get out and see the world. Good of them, wasn’t it?  I, on the other hand, have tied my kids to my apron strings with multiple knots.

By the time we reached the airport, the lump that had formed in my throat during last night’s dinner had made clear speech pretty much impossible. I stopped the car and helped my Dad take the cases out of the trunk and then I stood with them amidst the diesel fumes and bustling taxis, unable to do much more than hug them goodbye. They waved to me again just before they disappeared beyond the automatic doors.  You would think I would be getting better at this, but I’m not.  I’m not good at this part at all.

On the way back home, Willan called from the back seat, “Mummy, are you sad?”

“Yes, Willan” I answered, “I’m sad.”

I hate airport goodbyes.  So here are the hellos: