This past week we faced the worst turbulence ever, 18+ hours of travel, 3 trains, 2 planes, a subway and a bus to spend four days in the states with our beautiful boy.  Then we turned right around and did it again.  I am a travel bug.  I love to travel, but I do not recommend that kind of travel with so little downtime in between.  I now know the Amazing Race is not for me.

However.  Big, capital H, However. It was so worth it.  Every minute I spent with my beautiful boy, and it was a lot of minutes, made all that travel stress melt away.  Even now, looking through my 500+ photo’s of my four days, my travel stress melts away. Even better?  It fills my heart with love, encouragement and hope.  My beautiful boy can do this.  He will do this.  He will come home to me.

Dammit.  I promised not to cry while I wrote this, I promised to share all the giggles & laughs & stupid things we did.  That my kids did.  I am not sure when it stops, but I know 16 & 21 is not it, this is not when my boys just hug & say:

“Hello brother. I missed you.”  I know this is what they mean, but how it comes out is in tumbles and arm-bars and knocked over flower vases in my mother’s living room.  Why must boys say hello with every fiber of their being?  What wouldn’t I give to have them all tumbling around my living room right now, breaking flower vases and knickknacks.

Especially my beautiful boy.  My baby whisperer.  My sweetest child.  My easiest child.  My only child with those beautiful dimples.  My class clown. That beautiful boy is on his way to Afghanistan. To a war zone and my heart hurts so, so very bad.
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