The Beginning of the Beginning

I try to be a straight shooter, so I'm just going to come right out and say that getting ready to say goodbye to your kid for two years really sucks.

We are down to one more day. His flight leaves early Tuesday morning, so tomorrow is the last day. I am a mess. I have been bawling off and on all day at the most random things. I already have my ugly cry headache and I haven't even had an ugly cry yet.  I started bawling in church today when I sat next to my neighbor whose son just got back from a mission. I cried when I talked to my other neighbor whose son will be leaving next year. My only consolation is that both of them were crying right along with me.

It doesn't help that we keep having to say good bye to people, like these people right here.

I have to say though, that I am very proud of my mom. She is pretty famous for losing it during goodbyes, and I was sure this was going to be a bad one. She held it together pretty well though. Only shed a few tears, and made it pretty quick, Will said the only reason he didn't break down was because she didn't break down.  Food for thought for me there.

And then Duncan wants to get his picture taken with his brother tonight so he can put it on the screen saver of his phone.  He is taking a picture of Piper off and replacing it with this one. If you know how much Duncan loves his Piper, you know the enormity of what this means.

And, on a cheerful note, we finally finally finally got his visa! By the skin of our teeth, but we got it. He had to make an appearance at the Mexican consulate and was rather embarrassed when I insisted on taking his picture out front.  Hey, I worked hard for that visa. My own son and the lady at church travel seemed to be doing everything in their power to keep that visa out of my hands, but we got it done in spite of them.

So I'm going to be brave like my mom and hold it all together for one more day.  And my consolation the next day will be that at long last, we get to start the countdown to when he comes home. 730 days my friends, but really, who's counting? (me. I'm counting.)