It started under a cold February moon at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales, an unlikely location for romance. There were flashes of lightening and explosions of thunder that evening in early 2002, but the promise of that brilliant union was not kept. It is hard for my girl to admit defeat, but she will be coming back to America to live for a while, to my great joy and sorrow. There will be no divorce for now, but my husband said last night that it is hard to realize that Nick is no longer a part of our family circle. The love we feel for him has not diminished any more than the love our girl has for him, but romantic love requires that both people believe in its existence. My brilliant son in law is a professional skeptic, but I think in time he will realize what he has foolishly let slip through his fingers. She says she wants no one else, but time will ease the aching empty feeling. Her pain will be easier to bear here at home with the ones who love her always, and the summer will be filled with adventure; hikes, camping, beach trips, late evenings, and all the fun she generates for everyone around her.
She will hit here like a tidal wave around July, time enough to have all of her goodbye parties in UK before she has her welcome home parties here. Sometime around September she is leaving for a Peace Corps assignment in Southeast Asia, but before that she wants to take a trip to South America. I listen to her excited voice on the phone as she tells me about her plans. Her brother will be trailing along behind her, no doubt watching for poison darts fired from the banks of the Amazon. The adrenalin she produces will protect her from most any danger, but her sibling has no such shield. He learned long ago that trying to stop his sister’s spirit of adventure is like throwing your body into the path of a speeding locomotive. No future in that, so it’s better to just to hold on for dear life, enjoy it while you can, and hope for the best.
They started their escapades together when she was 13 and he 16, traveling to France to stay with a family that had children the same age. On that trip, under the protective care of a wonderful French American family, my girl sunbathed topless on the beach, drank her first champagne, dropped her passport down a crevasse of a glacier on Mt Blanche, and almost started an international incident in a German airport. The next trip they took to foreign soil was to Cancun, where she danced on top of the bar, got her brother to wear a grass skirt and coconut shells and spin around to “Dancing Queen”, and then posted the pictures on virtual tourist. In the summer before she graduated from U of F she went to St Petersburg on her own, purportedly to learn Russian. While there, she witnessed a murder, got chased by the Russian mafia, robbed by the police, fell in love with a Russian boy who was later killed, possibly by said mafia, and barely escaped with her life. That just gets her up to age 21 when the real excitement began. I’m exhausted just telling the story, so I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
The logistics of her daring-do are often left up to me and usually involve money. This time she says she will pay her own way, but would I please bring an empty suitcase to London so I can take some of her things home. The “home” part of the sentence was all I really needed to hear. No matter how far she goes, the ties of family will always draw her back. We are not near exciting enough to hold her for long, but this is her soft place to fall as long as I have breath in my body.
And incidentally, I would just to give an advance warning to Venezuela, Columbia, Brazil, and whatever banana republics are currently only worrying about minor issues, like civil war, drug trafficking, and the vanishing rain forest. Brace yourselves; she’s on her way.
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