Distraction is the name of the game

You know how in your head you know something is going to happen but in your heart you don't really believe it will?  Saturday was kind of like that.  Even as we helped Abby lug into the airport her two suitcases weighing a total of 3,219 pounds, a carry-on weighing 562 pounds, and a laptop bag weighing a mere 95 pounds (are you okay, Jorge?  no suitcase hefting injuries?) I couldn't quite get my head around the fact that she was really and truly going to be leaving and living in Ecuador.  I'm kinda thinkin' Dean had the same feeling because Friday night after dinner on our way to the airport hotel, when he and Abby couldn't agree on how many miles it was to the tollway exit, he challenged her to a bet with the stakes being you lose, you don't go.  Dr. Stilwell enlisted scientific reasoning and determined not to take him up on it.  She didn't have to stay behind, but she did have to admit to her father that she would have lost.

The pain of saying goodbye was as hard as I imagined it to be.  Walking into an empty house and bedroom was as hard as I thought it would be.  The tears I knew would flow, did flow but my face wasn't covered in snot not at the airport anyway so that was good.   We stretched out the misery of the moment as long as possible.  We tortured ourselves with watching Abby through the whole security process.  Yup, we ran up the escalator so we could get shots of her from above as she began snaking her way through security.

See her with the red bag?

Then we ran down the escalator so we could take photos of her partway through the security line. 

And as she worked her way closer to the final end of the line, we worked ourselves along the wall separating her from us, taking more pictures until that glass wall became a solid wall and ended our photo session.

There she is.......see her.........see the wall......to the right........?  we're over there........watching.....taking this picture.

We are all home now and adjusting in our own way and at our own pace.  Dean chose to distract himself by using some of the 815 hangers Abby left behind to reorganize his shirts.  They are now color-coded.  Green hangers for office shirts, white hangers for dress shirts, blue hangers for work-around-the-house shirts.  I plan to distract myself by looking into therapy options for him when he discovers I've placed his freshly ironed shirts on the wrong color of hanger.

One of us woke up this morning to the sounds of so many birds singing she thought she was in a forest and then walked outside her house and picked a starfruit for breakfast.   It wasn't me.

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Distraction is the name of the game

How many tears can the body produce?

It's the 24-hour countdown.  As I type this Abby is having breakfast with her dad and then will be going to say goodbye to her sister, nieces and nephew.  One of the many goodbyes she's been saying recently, but this will be a hard one.   The tears will flow and even though the kids won't really understand why, they will cry too because everyone else is.

Her bags are packed, ready and waiting.  I am waiting but not ready.

I stood in her bedroom inhaling her perfume and absorbing aura of the room, hoping that when I walk into it again, walk into a room empty of all the things that have filled it for the past two weeks, it will be less painful.  But really, I know that I will be crying when I pull off the sheets, crying when I vacuum the floor, crying as I dust the windowsills, because I am crying as I type this.

There are piles of stuff all over the house that Abby wants us to store or donate or keep, depending upon what it is.  Life before and since Christmas has been busy and chaotic and fun which meant that the piles that I should have looked through just got moved from one spot to another as the need for space arose.  I am hoping that I will be able to distract myself once we come home from the airport by finally sorting through, putting away, donating, getting rid of all those piles.  What am I thinking?  How is looking through things Abby had to decide she could not bring with her, but are/were part of her life going to distract me?  Duh.

I thought I could write a light-hearted post about this whole last day thing but it turns out I can't.  I'm sad and I don't care who knows it.  But I know a week from today, or maybe even a couple of days from now I'll be better.  I know that I have it easy.  Staying in contact is so much easier and instantaneous than when I moved away and long-distance phone calls were expensive and a luxury and a hand-written letter once a week was the best way to keep in touch.  I know that when Abby walks through the airport to the waiting arms of Jorge she will be fine.  It doesn't matter where you are.  It matters who you are with.  And even if we aren't together physically, we are together in our hearts........and on Skype........and e-mail................and phone calls with cheap (cheap being a relative term) international phone cards. 

I promise the next post will be happy.....ier..........not totally sad...........less sad.......................or maybe the post after that........................◦

How many tears can the body produce?