Departure Week

So happy the Pinewood Derby had this banner
over the main drag in F'burg--perfect!

Well, here we are on the other side of Departure Day!  Ine left our home yesterday, having completed her year with us.  As of 7:30 this morning, she was trying to sleep on a floor in a conference room in NYC near the airport, and sounded fairly unhappy, which I would be as well.  In less than 12 hours, she'll be up in the air, winging her way home to her waiting family and her life back in Belgium.

We had quite a final week.  There was a sense that it was all coming to an end way too quickly, and we knew the final week would fly by.  I answered an SOS from work and wound up working 3 days instead of my usual 2, but one day I took Ine in with me, and it was nice even if she sat and read at a desk while I was running around that we had some time to be physically together.

With a flag truck outside my office :-)

 We spent a lot of time at the pool, time running errands, and then eventually, we had a party!!

Saturday we had invited everyone down for a "See You Next Time!" party.  The weather looked a bit rough in the afternoon, and as per usual, dire predictions on the radio kept a few people away, even though the rain eased off after about 10 minutes and it was fine.  I'd like to thank the meteorologists for their hysteria.  Anyway, most everyone else made it, and happily Ine had invited a few of her friends to come over as well, which was nice that she had people her age!  I was sad because I had wanted us all to be outside, but there weren't so many people that we couldn't be comfortable.  The party lasted for about 4 hours, and gave Ine a chance to see so many people who had an impact on her life and who she impacted.  It was definitely a two way street!

With Andy and his mom Sherry

With Jana and Dolce

With our liaison, Amy

The highlight for me of Departure Day parties is giving the students their scrapbook.  I had been working on this in the mornings before everyone was up for the day for two weeks.  It is a labor of love, but it is a great time for me to reflect on the year, what we've done, what I personally have accomplished, and so on.  Ine said she was scared to see it, so even though I had told her it was done, she refused to look at it till I gave it to her at the party.

Her friends immediately dived into it and said "We want to see your adventures!" and she proudly showed them off.  She later told me she loved the book!  Yay!

The party was a rousing success and we ended the night with lots of small children running through the yard, screaming, having fun, and making joyful noises.

Sunday, our last full day together, I decided we would skip church, drop off the recycling, and then head over to the mall for lunch and pedicures.  Ine had never had a pedicure done, and I knew we needed some R&R and pampering, so we sat in massage chairs, and got our feet worked over.  Ine let Leah pick her nail polish, and wound up with bright orange toes! :)  It was such fun.

I told the girls we would go to the pool when we got home, but Ine decided to finish packing, so Leah and I walked over and Ine met us there later.  We had leftovers from the party for dinner as a little picnic and swam and played in the pool for a couple of hours.  It was a lot of fun.  That night, Leah wanted to have Family Movie Night, and chose Star Wars, but Ine wasn't feeling it, she said it was too much work to pay attention to!  I put Leah to bed around 10 and then Ine asked me for some Barenaked Ladies music to take with her, so we sat around the computer swapping MP3's and fighting with iTunes and Amazon to get some extra songs.Then the two of us sat around listening to BNL songs till about 12:30 when I finally decided it was time for bed.  Ine said she didn't want to sleep alone in her room, so I blew up the air mattress and she slept on the floor in my room.  The cats had no idea what to make of that!  It was hilarious watching them come in, sniff, and run away.

Yesterday was officially Departure Day.  It took both forever and no time at all.  We had about 8 hours to kill before we had to be at the drop off location, but it just felt like we were killing time and not really doing anything. Just sitting around, too much to say, and not really wanting to say it.  Finally we decided to take a walk.  Leah took her scooter and kept losing one of the bolts that kept the wheel on, so what would normally be a 20 minute walk turned into an hour of lost bolt finding, every time of which Ine was the one to locate the bolt!  She has the best eyes :)

Oh my bags are packed, I'm (not) ready to go...

We got in the car around 1:00 and made it up to Lorton just on time.  I told the girls to smile for a picture before we started crying, and I'm glad, because this is a beautiful last picture to have of the three of us.  And then we started crying.  Leah was doing her best to make everyone feel better, but it was really, really hard, to say the least.  Jana and her family were there just ahead of us, and I gave Jana a big hug first, and that was when I really started crying, but hugging Ine and saying goodbye to her was absolutely heartwrenching.  We have been through so much together this year, and both of us have learned so much from each other, it was just impossible to say goodbye.  At one point, Ine walked down the street a ways, and we went and hugged her, and brought her back, and after about 20 minutes, the AFS person in charge told her it was time.  We immediately decided we didn't like that person any more, and our mutual anger over that spurred her to go on to the orientation, but she avoided anyone trying to offer her physical comfort.

We drove off, and I waved goodbye to her, and that was it.  We stopped in at my sister's so I could compose myself enough to drive home, and good job too because the drive home took over 2 hours due to all kinds of traffic.  SIGH SIGH SIGH.  I hate living in Virginia on 95.  Seriously.

I got many texts from Ine last night while waiting for the bus to NY and the airport and a few this morning.  She is trying to rest before her flight today, and she is excited to see her family and ready for the whole thing to be over with.  I'm excited for them all to be reunited and be back together again, even if I'm sad to have said goodbye.  I sent her parents a long email last night about the things I learned about Ine and the changes she's made and what kind of a person she is that I hope will help them prepare for her arrival.  They are nervous about how different she is, but I hope that her new self will be a positive.  We think she is an absolute delight.

And so, with that, our time has drawn to a close. I will post again in a few days about what I've learned about myself and about parenting from this experience, and I have some tips for single parents who are considering this kind of thing that I hope will be helpful.  Thank you for following our journey this year.  It has been an amazing ten months and I'm so, so grateful to AFS, to my family, to my friends, and to Ine and her family for this life changing experience. I will never be the same.