Day 30 ❦ Share your heart

Day 30

The Gift: A farewell event

I have avoided writing about this for a while but today has come and I can not avoid it anymore. Today is the day that Nina, our exchange student from Denmark leaves. Now I know that I am writing this at the risk of having all of our other exchange students read this thinking that their departure was less significant. They were not. Nina just happened to be our student who left during the time that I was writing this and practicing the exercise of giving.

When our students arrive for the year and I greet them at the airport, they are tired, scared and usually a little bewildered. Here they are - in a new country with people they do not know, speaking a language that they do not get - and this is their new home, their new family for an entire year. At that moment a year seems like it will be an eternity, and there are certainly days when it feels like that on all sides of the exchange. But on that first day it is impossible to fathom how absolutely hard the next trip to the airport will be. Well, today is that day.

All of the new security at the airport has made it even more difficult because we used to be able to morosely sit around at the gate crying, waiting, and giving final hugs as the student boarded the plane. We would then all stand and watch as the plane’s hatches closed and slowly pulled away from the terminal tears streaming down all of our faces. One year one of our student’s friends arrived at the gate after she had boarded and begged boarding passengers to tell her that they were there so she could come out and give them one last goodbye (which both they and she did).

Now, we can not avail ourselves of this transitional, painful time. Now we get to stand and watch as our students get searched, wanded, as they strip off their shoes and belts, and have the pins on their exchange jackets confiscated. A stark contrast. Regardless, the final goodbye at the airport is hard beyond words.

When a student leaves their family and friends for a year, it is courageous and hard for all - but in the back of everyone’s minds, the student will return, albeit changed. When that same student leaves us to return home - we  know that we may never see them again and it tears up my heart every time. Several of our students have returned and I hold on to that hope of seeing all of them again. Nina is no exception. We are all going to miss Nina and the ride to the airport is quiet and miserable with an underlying excitement that is natural since she will be returning to family and friends she has not seen for a year. Hugely conflicting emotions swirl in the car.

We have learned that the more people at the airport, the more difficult it is for the student as they begin their long journey home, having to deal with the travel part of the experience, focusing on checking in, getting their luggage straightened out and making the emotional shift. So today, it is only my oldest daughter, Alison and myself who are taking Nina to the airport. There are extended moments of quiet and reflection and we accept those awkward moments. Nina is torn between talking about things and people she will miss while talking about those she is looking forward to seeing. So we naturally settle on talking about food. The love of good food is such a universal concept. She lists all of the food she loved while in the United States and what she will eat first when she is home. The two hour drive to the airport goes by quickly.

As a way of breaking up the tension, we go to my favorite eating experience near the airport - Rainforest Café. It is a great place to go as a distraction with thunderstorms raining down, apes grunting, elephants bellowing, and dolphins playing. For desert we order a volcano which is a huge pile of ice cream, chocolate, brownies, whipped cream all with a sparkler on top. A great way to go out. Off to the airport, lots of waiting, lots of haggling with airport personnel and baggage handlers, dealing with the other exchange students and their sad friends and families, and finally they all clear security and all we can do is wave from a distance and know that they are now on the next part of their trip. The emotional cost of the day is huge. I have to remind myself that the depth of the pain is in direct proportion to the depth of the love. Today the gift is both giving and receiving love.

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