Day 70 ❦ Give and Provide Comfort

Day 70 ❦ Give and Provide Comfort

The Gift: Dinner

Over the course of the past seventy days, I have often talked about the gifts and giving opportunities presented by youth exchange students. Everything about youth exchange is a giving opportunity, the students giving of themselves, the community giving a place for a student to land for a year, the student’s parents - both in their native country, who have giving their student wings for a year...and their host parents who not only have given their homes...but their hearts. I have been on both sides of that giving.

Our oldest daughter was a youth exchange student in France for a year and although the house
was very quiet and we missed her very much, we knew she would come back to us. I found myself in tears at the Homecoming football game within the first few months of her experience in France and the tears really surprised me, and in retrospect I remember feeling so sad as I watched all of the students who had graduated with Alison “coming-home” and hanging out at the football game. Our youngest daughter was six at the time and we were hosting a youth exchange student from Denmark at the time so we were able to stay busy and distracted about Alison’s absence. So while we missed her, the time went quickly and she was soon home before we knew it.

Now host families do not have that same luxury and comfort of knowing that the student to whom they open their hearts will come back home after they return to their native countries. We give as
if they are our own, we care for them without thought about the end of their time here and we can dream about seeing them when they get married, have children, and grow-up; but the reality is that in most cases, we may never see our exchange child again.

It is under that cloud that I am taking the current host mom of our exchange student to the airport (with Sisselin from Norway) to see her off as she completes her year here. The sadness and grief are palatable. And Sisselin, as with most students, is filled with mixed emotions; excitement that they will soon see their family and friends, and sadness in leaving their new family and friends. But the permanency of never seeing their new family and friends is a concept that will not set in for years. Both Holly and I have experienced it and we know and that makes it so hard.

There was a line spoken on the television show MASH that I will never forget, although I will paraphrase it here. The context is that many of the characters who were in the medical unit on the show were missing their families and grieving the lost time with their families, and after grief is shared throughout the entire show, one of the characters finally says, “The depth of your grief is a testament to the depth of your love, how lucky are you that you have this love to miss,” or something close to that sentiment. It is a truth. The depth of the grief of missing someone is in direct proportion to the love you have shared.

Knowing this loss in advance does not help as we head toward the airport. After we have waved goodbye to Sisselin, made sure that the plane actually took off, Holly and I quietly head back home. The kleenex and tears are plentiful. I decide that we need some comfort, I pull off the highway into a home-style cooking kind of restaurant and we order everything that screams comfort on the menu. And we sit and eat and tell stories and share the love that will remain in our hearts always and dream about the future.

❦ Give and Provide Comfort