Melancholy

One odd blessing that blew in as a result of the pandemic was the arrival of daughter #2 and her family.

You may remember that she has been working in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. As the pandemic worsened, the State Department advised employees with families to return to the States and began chartering flights to bring them back. This was terribly unsettling for the families having to leave as they were leaving all their belongings behind with no idea of when they were to return. Then you had to figure out where in the U.S. you were going to go. #2 & 2B because of various factors had decided to stay in Ukraine despite the risk...until suddenly they changed their mind and caught one of the last flights out. And they decided to come to Albuquerque where at least there was some support from Wife and me.

So we have had a lovely three-month period with one of our daughters and family right here. Knowing this would only be a short interlude, we got together on weekends, we initiated regular weekly dinners with the four adults. We had alone time with the various grandchildren. 2B (who enjoys and appreciates good wine) and I shared many a good bottle from my inventory. We did lots of cooking. Wife was reading to 2.4 who is 5-years old over Zoom daily. We did the weekend intervention trip to Durango.

But it is coming to an end. They leave early tomorrow morning for Washington, D.C. #2 has to ship out to her next post in Erbil, Iraq at the end of July. The rest of the family hopes to get back to the Ukraine. We got together every day this week to take full advantage of this last week.

We love that our children are so strong and have taken themselves to where they feel their career and heart belong even if that is far from us. But when one of these very infrequent interludes come up where we have a child and family in a situation where we are like we are living in the same area, we recognize what is missed having your family far away.