At the beginning it’s motivating to push on through
Cause you know in the end there’s almost always the reward.
My labour with Tyler was 21 hours.
I always think of that on this flight which is the same.
At the end of this 21 hours of air travel, we’ll be seeing family again.
That's a SHORT labour.
We've just been through a longer labour.
We sometimes thought it would never end.
Weeks of sorting 10 years in Asia:
what to take,
what to store,
what to loan,
what to give,
what to throw
We’ve finally left an empty apartment behind.
One last look at the night time skyline of Singapore from the 23rd floor.
And all the keys are left behind
Hidden in a green Ikea cup, on the second shelf of a shoe rack.
The new owner, currently living 3 floors down, wasn’t home.
Small and large heartaches, losses, and joys have packed this last month so full that I often felt like the faucet of life was on full strength and the container of my heart was overflowing the brim by the gallons.
How earnest we were to make sure we all finished well these first 10 years of life in Asia. I'm really praying the 'baby' at the end of this labour is worth all the gray hairs I've sprouted this past month.
Leaving gives excuse for otherwise unsaid words of memories or affirmation.
• Mulitple sleepovers for the children.
• A photo catalog online for our friends to peruse and claim at an Open House. Buy or borrow it. (Somehow farming out my possessions gives my heart more connection to our hard earned network of relationships than if everything went to storage)
• A sweet dinner gathering of artists who follow Jesus.
• A BBQ with Jim’s CRMS colleagues.
• A phone and inbox full of sweet goodbye messages.
• Watching “24” in our hotel room with a friend (on the computer because the tv screen in the ‘family suite’ was ‘so tiny’)
• friends who treated the boys to see Fantatstic Four on opening day, our final day.
• A glorious massage with a new sweet friend in an exquisite spa.
• A final meal hawker dinner of Singaporean foods with two dear young couples who’ve become like family as we have shared in their weddings and heartaches, productions, holidays and travel.
These are the memories I want to cherish.
In time we’ll forget the people who signed up to borrow or buy things who didn’t in the end.
Like the night before the movers came, the last person came at 11:30pm only to decide to not take items she’d claimed,
and to bargain with us over a desk.
Would we take $12 instead of $20?
(Jim said of all the events this past month, this was the most personally challenging.)
In time I’ll not recall that I realized Cameron has missed 5 childhood vaccinations and we’d better do it here, where it’s cheap and I know were to go. In the midst of moving this meant multiple trips to the doctor or polyclinic to challenge his immujne system with “jabs” of measles mumps rhubella polio diptheria typhoid and tuberculosis (And dear Lord help me forget that his sniffling and sneezing wasn’t dust allergies from packing, as I told the doctor, but he indeed did have a head cold, which meant a high fever as he battled his flu with the rest of the diseases we’d injected him with).
In time we’ll not feel the shock and pain of losing our sweet little dog Rascal
who died unexpectedly, 6 days before we left, while getting his teeth cleaned.
A simple procedure under anethesia to prepare him for his year’s stint with the Foo Family.
In time we’ll forget the heart searing panic our helper Loonni had in hearing that her son wasn’t attending school in Thailand. And that he was intending to become a buddhist monk before her return in only 3 weeks. Her initial days of despondency and her urgent need to get on the next plane out of Singapore. In time, perhaps we'll all only remember that God gave wisdom, good advisors, and peace for her to stay until the date of her purchased air ticket, and that she had good closure to her life in Singapore. Perhaps in time, we’ll hear that this boy, and the rest of her extended family, have entrusted their lives the the Saviour that she found while working for us.
In time, I’ll forget that the plans to have our last day together sending to Loonni at the airport then enjoying together the things we love was spoiled by my accepting a lunch ‘treat’ from a friend who didn’t know how to meet me at one of the most well known and central locations in the city. Instead she said, “I’ll call you at 11:05 and pick you up wherever you are.” (how about that popular place I just suggested?) These circumstances then filled my last day with 2 hours waiting and crossing town by train to meet her, only to hear her say when she finally found me: “If I didn’t love you so much. I’d have turned around and gone home.” I took her arm and said, “We both have had a frustrating morning. Let’s go have some lunch and redeem it.”
In time we’ll forget the panic of realizing that some things we needed to take with us were packed by the movers and put in storage (receipts, documents, the pile of info regarding life in CA). ARGH!!! But there was in the very end, the relief that the important 'starhub' cable equipment we needed to return, was at our friends the Webb's house and not in a storage box afterall.
We'll forget the bad and cherish the good memories. Just like it was in having a baby.
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