Just over a month ago, I took my son’s picture on his first day of kindergarten. He was standing on our front porch steps, under the Texas flag (were there any doubts?) in the same place I have taken his sister’s first day of school picture every year for the past six years. As I took the picture, I started to cry. Not because it was his first day of kindergarten--ok, partly because of that--but because that is the last first day of school picture I will take on those front steps. Next year on the first day of school we will be Somewhere Else. And I have no idea where that is.
This year will be full of Last Things. The last opera in Verona. The last PWOC Fall kickoff, during which I was gratefully so busy I forgot to think about it and therefore did not spend the whole morning in tears. The last Christmas here--hopefully I can FINALLY get to a midnight mass, because it’s my last chance. The kids will have their Last Day of School--and that will be it for Vicenza. There will be one last trip to Venice--and then we will be off to a new adventure.
Why am I spending all this time crying over this? The military life is very transitory; people move ALL THE TIME. We will probably move every three years for the rest of our foreseeable future. Why does this one move affect me so much? Probably because we’ve been here so long. My daughter has lived here more than half her life. This is the only home my son has known (the United States is a foreign country to him.) I have lived in this place longer than I have lived anywhere since 1987.
Italy has become my home. And while part of me looks forward to the next great adventure that God and the Army have for us, part of me will be looking around sadly as I treasure my Year of Last Things.
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