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Our little family took a huge leap this year and went on an international trip that took us away from home for over three weeks.
This is the first time our preteens left the US soil in a very long time. Last opportunity
we had to travel as a family overseas they were not even four and two.
A lot has changed in meanwhile.
Young children are blissfully oblivious. As they grow, they become more aware of the
complexities of the situation they are placed in and each of us deals with change
and stress differently.
The sheer privilege of the international travel was quickly
lost under a mountain of real and imagined fears.
The fact that we, as parents, were well
acquainted with wide range and nuances of cultural stress didn’t help our
children as they faced their own.
For three long weeks, we kept hearing,
I want to go
home. I want to go home. I want to go home.
And there was nothing – absolutely nothing – we could do to
alleviate this pain.
No words.
No coaxing, no yelling, no screaming.
No bribery.
No bending over backwards.
No distractions, no threats, no promise could ease the raw discomfort of being away from home.
It was excruciating to watch our child suffer such anguish,
such unmitigated misery while surrounded by love, surrounded by affection, attention,
great food, absolutely no lack of anything.
In this home-sick state her capacity to receive any of it
was diminished, really reduced to nothing. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t receive
any of it.
One night, utterly desperate, I cried out:
Now you know how I
feel all the time! I couldn’t
believe my own words!
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