*originally published at Djibouti Jones.
I remember telling you we were pregnant. We had spaghetti because that’s what you served your parents when you announced each pregnancy. I requested it, but you cooked it because I already felt sick. And so, almost before I told you, you knew.
I remember telling you we were pregnant with twins. You knew I had the ultrasound that day. I stepped into your house and said, “We have something to tell you.” The plan was to show you the videotape of the ultrasound, make you guess why our baby had two heads. But, again, you knew before I told you. You said, “Its twins, isn’t it?”
I remember you tattooing my massive stretch-marked belly with planets and stars and I remember you coming to see the high level ultrasounds and crying.
I don’t really remember telling you we were moving to Somalia. But I also don’t remember you ever saying, “Don’t go.” You had expected something like this for years, almost like you knew again, before I told you. I don’t remember telling you we were taking your grandchildren to what felt like to us, at that time, the ends of the earth, a place none of us could picture in our minds. But I don’t remember you saying, “Don’t go,” because you never said it.
We boxed our belongings and stored them in your basement, in your upstairs closets and empty farm buildings. We wrenched up our family and our roots. And we left.
I don’t know what that was like for you.
I can imagine. I imagine it felt like ripping and shattering. I can imagine it felt cold and black, unreal and yet too real. It seems so long ago, the actual leaving, but it also seems so near. I think because the leaving wasn’t truly that one day, it is every day since the first in January 2003.
Sometimes I want to apologize to you, for causing this pain. Sometimes I want to apologize for not sending enough updates on the kids or Skyping often enough, for having stand-in relatives.
But, though I wish there wasn’t pain involved, I don’t feel right apologizing. Because I don’t have regrets, not ultimately, not when all things are taken into consideration. If I could live two lives, one of me would stay put and one would be on this wild adventure I am on. But since I can’t, I won’t apologize for not being able to accomplish the impossible.
So instead, I will simply say thank you.
Thank you for not saying “Don’t go.”
Thank you for raising us with a vision for the world outside our immediate circles. Thank you for teaching us to work hard, to trust like crazy, to dream big, to love deep. Thank you for helping us pass these qualities on to your grandchildren.
Thank you for sliding down McDonald’s Playland slides, for gathering up snow pants when we show up for a month and the temperature is below zero, for washing extra dishes, for baby-sitting back in those days when we needed it. Thank you for finding used bicycles and even a stray cat for us to use/love.
Thank you for crying when we left but for never making us feel guilty. Thank you for making space in your homes for our boxes, space for our bodies when we are back. Thank you for giving your grandchildren a safe place to talk about their experiences, for being interested in their lives, for seeing that they are content and for not overturning that.
Thank you for all the trips to the airport, for welcome signs and welcome candies, for homemade quilts to warm our freezing toes, for bags of clothes to wear while in the US.
Thank you for picnics and parties and fresh fish fry and bean-bag toss and lasagna and bowls of strawberries. Thank you for keeping family traditions and for slipping us in seamlessly when we are here to join. Thank you for sending some of those traditions in packages across the sea.
Thank you for visiting, for stamping your passport with a country few of your friends have heard of. Thank you for learning about a region of the world you previously hadn’t paid attention to. Thank you for seeing our lives there, not just the black hole left in your heart, but the life we have built of work and friendships and home. Thank you for possessing the courage and humility it takes to acknowledge and appreciate that and to not insist that the only good place for us to live is near you (though that would be good too).
And now that two of our three kids are in college, thank you for stepping up and being grandparents in the same country. Driving practice, wisdom teeth surgeries, holidays, weekends with college students crashing your home.
Thank you for making it abundantly clear that no matter where we live, we are loved. We love you and we miss you.