A Whirlwind Month – Part 1

Dano spent the first two weeks of March in London at London’s Business School. Fortunately Greif now has a very nice driver who can also take our family where we need to go; very helpful when Dano is not here. He returned to host the Greif board of directors for their visit to Jeddah. When they flew back to the U.S., Emily, Abigail, and I flew with them. (A short time ago Dano and I decided the best thing for our family was to sell our house.) So with mixed emotions we selected a realtor and I headed home to prepare it for sale.

I was a little apprehensive about flying half-way across the world with the two little girls. We had a two a.m. flight to Frankfurt which is normal for flying out of here. Flying with these four men made that first leg of our trip seamless. (Except for the stroller which somehow became a three-wheeler during the flight. I think the airline must have stowed it with the landing gear so it came down with such.) They ensured I didn’t have to carry a carseat or bag, much less a child. Their layover was longer than ours so they shuttled us through the Frankfurt airport to our gate and saw us successfully on our next flight. These men are a tribute to why Dano enjoys working at Greif - titles aside, families and people matter most.

From there it was just a long trip. Emily decided fifteen minutes before take-off would be a great time to…relieve herself. The flight attendant would not let me get up to change her. She promptly fell asleep upon take-off (Emily-not the flight attendant) and had to sleep in “it” until they turned off the seatbelt light thirty minutes later. Details spared, it was fortuitous that I took an extra change of clothing for her. Although, in regards to the airplane bathrooms, they are not quite large enough to pass as changing tables, and I did feel so badly that we were leaving that “gift” in there at the beginning of a nine hour flight.

The rest of the flight was kind of a blur. Abby slept for about two hours. Emily slept off and on in their idea of a bassinet, not like the airline bassinets I’ve previously written about. This one was more like a coroner’s body bag for infants. If I could have found the camera Dano packed for me I would have snapped a picture. It was a vinyl gray bag that lay on the floor and zipped up both sides. It was weird, but the only way she was going to get some rest. Abby, on the other hand, enjoyed watching Tangled. When she finished watching it and asked to watch it again, the moderate-television-watching-mom in me thought one movie was enough. I then looked at my watch, realized we had five more hours to go, and eagerly pressed ‘play.‘

We landed in Chicago late. I quickly maneuvered us through customs and headed to retrieve our luggage. Ours, by chance, were the last ones off, minus Emily’s carseat. There was not much we could do as we had to run to our next flight. I rechecked our luggage and ran with the girls through security to find our flight. By this point my two little troopers were tired and getting hungry. The security officer told me not to waste my time; there was no way I was making it to my flight and to go rebook it. The ticket agent was less than helpful or empathetic. With both girls now crying we stood there for twenty minutes as she stared at a monitor with her fingers clicking on the keyboard at about 140 words/minute. What are they really doing when they do this? Seriously, it was like I was in a comedy. After all that, I was certain she was going to be a hero and tell me she’d gotten us on the next flight. Nope. She got us on the flight six hours later. Again, seriously?!! I knew by then we were drawing a lot of looks. I wanted to start crying myself.

I loaded our crippled stroller, Abby’s carseat and backpack on a trolley and begged special approval to take it between terminals. The agents at the other end were able to get us on standby and we thankfully got on the next flight. I was able to call Dano from the airport lounge phone to let him know we’d missed our flight. Our good friend had already been to the airport to pick us up. He didn’t find us, of course, but was able to convince airport workers to let him take our luggage. We joked about how secure that is!! Later that evening, though, we finally made it, twenty-eight hours from the time we’d left Jeddah. Needless to say we slept well that night.

The next two weeks were packed. My sister and her husband and baby came to visit for the weekend and I was able to meet my super-adorably cute nephew. It was so fun to have them there. Her husband’s brother and his family came down from Midland for a visit; also very fun to have them, though I did feel a little guilty inviting them into CRAZY. Dano’s dad came out to do any the touch-up work that needed to be done and my mom came out to help with whatever I needed.

Many details aside, we made it out of the house as it was snowing. Emily didn’t think that was very funny. Abby thought it was great! And sadly, just like that, there was no turning back. Our house was listed and there would be a sign in the yard the next day. We’ve had this house for six years now which is the longest I’ve ever been in one house. There are so many memories of family and friends there. We truly made this house our home. I know they say when you sell a house the first thing you have to do is remove all emotion. I kept telling myself this over and over. But, the emotions are there and always will be. I know we’ll drive down Highlands Drive many times over the next many years and the memories will flood every time…of moving in,
celebrating birthdays, family slumber parties, planting trees and bushes, building our playset, football games, shooting rockets, flying kites, basketball games, holidays, bringing home Abigail, baseball games, catching fireflies, swimming, burying Piper, soccer games, roasting marshmallows, watching wildlife, rocking on the front porch, getting up in the middle of the night to watch meteor showers, and marveling at rainbows.
This is the end of a long chapter of our lives, but the pages were full and the ending is sweet.