Milestones

It sound so cliche to say a picture is worth at 1000 words.

But to me, this one always will be.

It was shot at Chicago O'Hare in February 2006 shortly before we boarded and took our business class seats with three children, six and under, and with our one way tickets tucked into their newly minted passports.

They had all flown before. The breastfed Baby had even made the long trip to China with us on our Look/See visit about six weeks earlier. But this was a new step, a new phase, a milestone of international travel across time zones and cultures. We were hurtling headlong into our life as expats.

The Baby (9 mo.) is zonked. The Middle (4) is crying. The oldest (though it seems impossible to consider a gap-toothed six-year-old as "old") is pensive. She is wearing her purple cowboy boots with yoga pants because they took up too much space in our preciously allocated suitcases.

Speaking of suitcases, 20 or so are balanced precariously on the over-sized luggage cart. The two thrift store specials are featured prominently in this photo. One was quickly discarded when we arrived in our host country, and the other eventually became the storage space for our menagerie of oft-naked Barbie's.

I look at this photo and remember the uncertainty and emotion that accompanied that day and the days leading up to it. I just want to grab each one of those sweethearts and tell them it will be okay. You'll love it in China. You'll call it home. I want to tell those young parents on the other side of the camera, those exhausted looking, not quite thirty-somethings, who lean against the ticket counter, that they'll do okay too.

And, I'd like to tell them that one day they'll stand on the other side of that great precipice, and find themselves on the brink of yet another milestone. And the emotions they feel then might be vaguely familiar.

|This post is part of the View From Here Photo Challenge. Click over to gogovivi and check it out.|