Countdown

I will admit that my son perhaps could have had all his stuff packed before going off to Australia, saving me the trouble. However, the fact that he didn’t had 2 real good outcomes. One was it kept my mind off the fact that on Thursday he’s leaving for 5 years. The second good part – I can rant very well all by myself. Having him here doing the packing and having to listen to him rant would have been pure torture. Plus we would have been fighting about what forms need to be filled out, what we have to do, blah blah blah.

He gets back from Australia tomorrow afternoon. Since it’ll feel like 3 a.m. or so by the time he gets home, I expect he will go straight to his bed soon as he gets home. I, on the other hand, will be emptying his suitcase and doing his laundry. Again, there will be some who will say I should let him do it. Well you know what? This will be the last time I’m doing his laundry & that will be 1 more task to keep my mind off how far away he’s going to be.

You know something? (Now here’s some late night rambling that used to be confined to emails.) It makes me think about my great-grandparents. How on earth did they pack up their young children and leave the only home they ever knew and move away from everyone & go off to a foreign country? At least Stephen will be coming back. They knew they never would be. How do you do that? I mean I’m glad they did. There’s no other country I’d prefer to live in. (Yeah, especially now when I think of the trouble it would take to pack all my belongs! )

It had to take an enormous amount of courage for them to leave the familiar, to leave everyone they loved (well except for their spouse & kids) and move so far away. And I guess the bottom line is, they were trying to do what they felt was best for their family, for their children. I guess that I can understand.

End of rambling.