22 Days to Go: Doubts Creep in ...

Three weeks from today, we will be boarding a plane for London, and then on to Addis Ababa.  It's so hard to image it being reality after all these months of anticipation.  The kids are really ready as well.  At four and a half, Gus doesn't have a very firm grasp on the passage of time, and even though I have explained the time frame to him in every way I know how, he anticipates our departure around every corner.  If I tell him to put his shoes on to go with me to Target, he pauses to wonder if we will be getting the baby at Target.  When I tell him, again, that we aren't going for three more weeks, he responds by asking if we are going tomorrow.  We are really glad that Gus is so cute, because academics may not be his strong suit.  Finn, on the other hand, is a patient little person.  He is so in the moment with school, Legos, the cats, reading, and all his other pursuits, that he tends to get lost in his own life quite a bit.  When the time comes to go, he will be wild with excitement and questions and insights into every little detail of the journey.

My parents took me and my brother to Africa when I was 13 and Ted was 12.  We went with a big group of families from my brother's boy scout troop, and spent three weeks in Kenya, Tanzania, and Egypt.  It really was the trip of a lifetime, and ever since being there 23(!) years ago, I have wanted to go back.  I have very strong memories of the incredible landscape, the joyful, proud people, the animals, vivid colors and, of course, dust everywhere.

Because we were mostly on safari and not in the cities, I don't remember seeing any of the kind of poverty and disease that I know we will see on this trip.  A woman who recently returned from bringing her daughter home from Ethiopia was remarking on how hard it was to see so many orphans living on the streets, begging for food and money.  I am not sure how the boys will see all of that either.  Sometimes they surprise me with their ability to focus on themselves, and other times they ask those big picture questions that I don't know how to answer.  Part of me thinks it might be wrong to expose them to things that are sure to shake their faith in the idea that life is "fair," and then the other part of me thinks that I've been wrong to ever try to foster that belief in the first place.  I try to keep them from seeing violence, or disturbing images on the news, because I don't want them to worry about war, or bad people, or natural disasters.  It's almost as if death and suffering is as difficult to talk about as where babies come from, if not even more so.  

Finny recently asked me about 9/11, and I answered his questions pretty broadly, but I couldn't even begin to imagine what he would think if he could have seen it.  I have tried to avoid the news since the earthquake in Haiti, because how do you explain that to a child, or to yourself for that matter?  Finn once told us that if he ever thinks about me or Matt dying it makes him feel like he is going to "crack open right in the middle," and that is how I feel when I watch this horrible situation there.  It's just beyond anything I can put into words.

But then I think, while I am so busy keeping my children sheltered from anything unpleasant, children their age are living through those horrible things.  I guess I have only myself to blame when my children fall to pieces over such terrible injustices as having to share the last cookie, or not having the right batteries right away for a toy they just have to play with.  Those really are some of the worst things they have to deal with, and I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing long-term.

 So I'm sort of winging it, hoping the kids are hearty enough to see things that may be sad or hard to see, and still stay innocent and trusting.  I'm hoping that the happiness of meeting their sister and being part of that experience will outweigh everything else (including the multi-day plane trip back and forth).  Plus, I know there will be incredible, beautiful things to see as well, and great food to eat, wonderful people to meet.  And then it will be over, and we'll come back and unpack everything, little by little.