And just like that, they're gone. My mother just texted me from the airport to let me know that the workers there were more interested in watching World Cup football than checking them in. She called it fun, which is a good indication that this place has rubbed off on them at least a little.I've lived here for over two years, my parents were here for twelve days, and yet I'm having a hard time seeing it all without them anymore. They've woven themselves into our lives here so seamlessly that sending them home feels like tearing at the fabric.
I'll take that tearing, though, since it means they were here at all. They raced to the top of a mountain on rickety motorbikes and made it safely back down again. They danced with special needs kids in a colourful classroom with a concrete floor. They've been up to the top of the mast and down to the engine room, chopped potatoes and snorkeled in the port water to help clean the hull. They learned names and faces and the twisted corridors of this ship, and they did it all with love just pouring out of them.
They've told me before that they're proud of me, and I get that. They're my parents, after all; they're supposed to feel that way if I'm living my life properly, and these days it sure feels like I am.
It's just that, right now, I'm learning how it feels to feel the same way about them. I'm so proud of the way they jumped into this life with no hesitation, throwing themselves into every experience that I could cook up for them without questioning anything. How they embraced Africa with wide open arms, the dust and the heat and the smells. All of it.
I just wish I didn't already miss them so much.
Marnie