Off to Great Places--He's Off and Away

Sam's gone.

David flew home for about 8 hours. Just long enough to ordain Sam an elder, get a couple hours' sleep, and then take him to the airport at 4 AM.

The ordination was wonderful. It seemed a wonderful way to close this chapter of our family's (and Sam's!) life and to open the next. As I looked at my boy, standing there taller than his father, I kept remembering holding him a couple of hours after he was born when the nurses had finally left and it was just him and me and David. David cried. He was so tiny and new. And now he towers over me and has been taking care of me in strange countries and knows more than I do about just about everything.

David and Eleanor and I took Sam to the airport to go back to the states to college (despite the MIT shirt in the photo, Sam opted for Stanford). They have a great big sign just inside the front doors of the airport that says "Passengers Only." On the easier-to-get-forgiveness-than-permission principle, David just walked through with Sam. He helped him pay his airport tax and present his documents and then came back to me and Ellie, and we went home sure that all was well with Sam. Turned out that right after David left, they decided Sam didn't have the right stamps in his passport. They took him and his passport to a little room and had him fill out forms and pay some money. Thank goodness Sam had the presence of mind and the cash (remembering again why I like the traveling-with-wads-of-cash method of living overseas) to get through it.

And now we've launched him. To infinity and beyond!