There Was Weeping and Deafness of Ear

In the Ritchie family, like many other families who communicate in creative ways, we have innocuous little phrases speckling our speech that one simply wouldn't understand from the outside. One of those phrases is “the airport walk.” You see, Daddy + Dulles Airport = Airport walk. Or Daddy + short layover = Airport walk. Or Daddy + anything having to do with any airport = airport walk. On a normal 16 year old girl the airport walk would be more like an aggressive power-walk that borders on a fast jog. But when one is lugging a 30lb back pack, a guitar, and a small duffel bag there isn't a whole lot of jogging happening. Please keep this phrase in mind as you try to comprehend our international travel pace.  

          

      The foreboding day had dawned. After a night of solid, sweet, dream filled sleep this 16 year old awoke smiling and ready to take on the challenging but exhilarating day ahead. Hahahahaha oh gosh, if only. Yeah no, I slept maybe 2 hours the whole night and awoke feeling precisely like someone had fed me to a brontosaurus and I was currently being digested in his lower intestines. Not my best morning. Generally a cuppa will bring me around to nearly any morning but this particularly dastardly Wednesday my stomach was in a foul mood. It promptly expelled that innocent cup of tea. Rude. I had a nasty head ache, my sinuses had at least 2 semi-trucks double-parked inside, and my stomach was convinced that I had grievously wronged it by being alive this morning. Also, I was kind of in “I hate my stupid life mode” so I wasn't exactly bearing these afflictions cheerfully. Miss Sunshine I was not.

Unfortunately there wasn't much time to reflect on my general misery. We finished gathering the last of our belongings and loaded the vans. Many dear friends came to wave us of. It was truly touching and our hearts were full as we hugged and said goodbyes. It was NOT easy to leave all those precious friends, but alas, it had to be done. And so it was. We are so grateful to all of you who expressed your love for us. It is truly encouraging to know we have such a marvelous cheering squad.  The Pucketts were driving our 20 trunks in their van and all of us Ritchies were in our trusty blue minivan. It was a weird drive. Normally a Ritchie road trip is filled with epic playlists, laughter, wise cracks, an audio book or two, videos of drooling and/or snoring siblings, and frequent rest stops. Not so this drive. The frequent stops were the same, and we eventually did get an epic playlist going but it was almost awkward. No one really wanted to admit that today was the last day we would be all together for 6 months. Those of you who have suffered through deployments probably know the feeling. Desperately wanting it to be a good memory, but lacking the ability to infuse the moments with deep meaning. Trying to memorize the feeling of having your siblings all around you and the image of them laughing. It’s garbage. It really is. But, time insists on passing, so the 4 hour drive to DC was completed and we found ourselves camped out in front of the British Air desk with our mountain of bags. No one was at the counter. Apparently we were an hour ahead of schedule so we sat around and talked and made yet another bathroom trip. Alas, the counter agent appeared and we made our way through the line and got all our trunks checked in.

Meredith, bless her, doesn't understand packing. It’s not like she means to leave stuff out of her bags, she just forgets, or thinks it’s great to have half of the contents of her backpack tied to the outside of it. 

She also forgot to mention the guitar. We considered leaving it behind but in the end figured we risk the extra baggage and lug it with us. Actually we were only supposed to have 15 trunks but we got all 20 checked in, ditto the guitar at no extra cost. (Holla!) We distributed Meredith’s extra gear among our various carry-ons with some creative calisthenics and strained zippers. Unfortunately after we got all the bags dealt with it was time to go to security. Upon realizing this was when we were parting, my stomach suddenly decided it was tired of being a stomach and it wanted to be a decomposing log. It’s my personal belief that goodbyes are infinitely bad for the digestion. So we bid the dear Pucketts goodbye. Then began what none of us really wanted to start. Dadgummed inter-family goodbyes. “It’s only 6 months.” We repeated that over and over and over. 6 is a pretty small number. Months is an easy word to say. But all of us knew that it’s oh so very much easier to say “See you in 6 months” than to actually make it through those 6 months. It was an ugly moment. Goodbyes always leave an ache, whether it shows up immediately or not.

Side note: When Helen gets emotionally upset she likes to have something difficult to do. Her salvation came in the form of a new role. Biggest sister. Daunting role, am I right? Being the oldest child means you pick up the slack. You make the littler ones comfortable, and if it costs you some personal comfort so be it. You make something foreign into something exciting. You create the epic playlists and point out the grand adventure. Sarah is the best oldest sibling I have ever beheld. She has often sacrificed herself to make us happy. She’s always the one who sits wedged between car seats, with the screaming sibling on hour 11 of a ghastly road trip and kindly gets them to shut up. She creates a perfect playlist that somehow makes everyone happy. She know each of us very well, and knows exactly how to love on us and make us behave. She is one stinkin’ hard act to follow!

Ok, so there we are, having said the stupid goodbyes and headed off to security with grim hearts. Happily the line was nonexistent and nothing alarming happened to our stuff other than throwing away James’ giant tube of toothpaste. (That’s alarming because James – tooth scrubbing = breath of hades) I had a rather heavy backpack on (one simply cannot have too many books) and my carry on gym bag (also heavy) and Meredith’s guitar (don’t ask) and suddenly realized, the airport walk has begun. Crud. I have zero upper body strength. Time to oldest-sister up and switch on the aggressive power-walk. And so the adventure began, with Helen trying to look like this airport thing is effortless, and internally chastening herself for neglecting arm day. It turned out our gate was about 35 miles away. Who knew right? Eventually (gasping) we reached our gate and collapsed into those black chairs. James said he was hungry. (James deals with emotion by eating.) So off James and Meredith and Mom trotted off to hunt down smoothies and frozen yogurt. No hating people; airports and departures are stressful things and require happy munchies of some sort.

After the appropriate time had passed we started boarding the plan.

Side Note 2: British Air is staffed by British people. British people have British accents. British accents make everything sound better. Flight delay announcements sound stressful. Flight delay announcements voiced by British Air Staff sound muuuuuuch better.

Apparently some beastly thunderstorms were right in our flight path so we sat on the plane for 3 hours before it took off; but happily there were many good movies to pass the time. I’d like to take this opportunity to say, I hate taking off and landing. I don’t mind the middle part where the plane is fairly level. But I do mind being powerless and accelerating down an asphalt strip into thin air. However, oldest sisters think flying is marvelous. It’s NOT scary. NOT AT ALL!!!!!!! #@?!%*&!!!!!

Gee, flying to London takes a long time! You know, 8 hours doesn't sound long either. The first flight was altogether pretty pleasant: nice attendants, great accents, good movies, entirely edible entrees. The only problem was that a 3^rd semi had decided to occupy my sinuses. Heavy sinuses paired with altitude change is a nasty combination. I had this awkward little squeezy medicine bottle that I was supposed to shove up my nose and squirt so that it would eat away all the mucus. Only problem was that I apparently am incapable of squirting stuff up my own nose. (I know, it’s ridiculous. Maybe it’s an instinct from the peanut incident. Ask Sarah.) Soooo my sinuses were still quite blocked when we started descending into London.

Side note 3: I have always always always wanted to go to England! We only had a layover of 4 hours and it was about 2 in the morning when we were going to land but I was determined to have a cup of Twinning’s in the airport. Sadly our 3 hour delay meant we had a 45 minute layover and there was no time for Twinning’s. Well, I was willing to risk it but airport-walk-Daddy was having none of it. Merph. Maybe on the way home.

Ok so there we were, descending (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) into London and quickly Helen becomes aware of the pressure building inside her head. Crud. She tries the awkward squirt bottle. No joy. She blows her nose with all her might. No joy. Suddenly, both her ears block up. Great. Now she’s emotionally compromised, brain dead, and deaf. Fabulous. Wonderful. Just what she needs.  

We landed in London and sprinted through security.  I nearly made it through, reading lips and sort of hearing people. Unfortunately my bag was “suspicious” so they decided to sort through it. We had 30 minutes to get on the plane. Daddy may or may not have been hyperventilating. He sent Mom, Meredith, James, and their inoffensive bags on ahead. He waited with me, pulling back on his waterproof shoes that hate metal detectors. The Brit leisurely looking through my extra jeans an underwear was chatting with me about the world cup (I think.) I had a vague idea of what he was saying but was heavily relying on the smile and nod method. Finally we got it all zipped back up and this time airport sprinted to our gate and slid into our seats on the plane. We made it. By the hair on Daddy’s chinny chin chin.

Another missionary family we had met at one of our training weeks was also on that flight about a row away. That was comforting to see familiar people. I think they said hello but I was still deaf so I smiled and nodded. There was much relief when we regained our former altitude and my ears unblocked. I made a point of regular trips to the bathroom to blow my stupid nose that I might never be deaf again.

At this point, my oldest sister super suit was getting a little suffocating. Have a little grace, I had just assumed the role 11 hours earlier. Maybe someday I’ll have a little more endurance, but for the next 8 hours I allowed myself the luxury of thinking of only self. It was lovely. And also awful. By this time I had been up for more than 24 hours and was completely exhausted. Economy seating on an aircraft hardly allows for a solid night’s sleep. I caught maybe 3 winks and mindlessly watched Saving Mr. Banks and Book Thief. Both were rather depressing actually but I was in the mood to be depressed.  I actually had a dream I was asleep in a vertical chair at Hope Haven and I woke myself up in order to move to the horizontal couch. Bitter were my thoughts when I had roused myself and found absolutely zero horizontal surfaces on which to realign my sadly mistreated spine. I’m a wuss.

Finally, we landed in Nairobi. We hit the pavement rather hard, but hey, we were back on solid earth again. I was in a bit of a numb, bleary, unfocused state of mind but somehow managed to resume oldest sister responsibilities and shepherded Meredith and James down the steps out of the plane and onto a very full bus. It was raining, I remember that. The bus dropped us off at the visa line and we slowly slowly slowly made our way through. Then it was onward to the baggage claim. 14 of our 20 trunks had made the 45 minute transfer. We didn't realize this for about an hour or two and then we reported them to the security peoples and finally loaded up three carts with the 14 trunks. 

We rolled right past customs, who didn't ask to look in our bags (thank you God!), and out to the parking lot. The Steurys (the country directors for our missions agency) were waiting for us along with 2 other ladies I hugged but have no idea who they were. They loaded our trunks up and herded us onto a van. It was dark, and about 11 pm. Our clocks were totally out of alignment but we were exhausted so sleep came easily.

This oldest sister shed a few tears that night, tucked into a fold out couch. Tears because she knew it would be a long 6 months until her family was all together again. And because she was exhausted. And because the stupid day was finally done. But mostly because it was going to be a long, long, long 6 months.

Thus ends the chronicle of our departure. It was as smooth as an international moving experience could be. We are immensely grateful for the lovely people who helped us through that extremely long journey. You guys are our heroes!