Thursday, November 1, 2012

The Book of Morgan

This is not the end of the story, just the end of the first chapter....and these stories must be told....

Chapter One

Today my best friend leaves Brazil, she and her family head back to the States after their two year tour here in Brasilia. We will really only be separated for a few months during home leave and will all reunite again in DC for our time in language. Goodbyes delayed, until we leave for India, sort of. It is said in this lifestyle that we never say "goodbye," only "see you soon," because eventually we all meet up again. I know its true, but I also know it'll never be the same. Sure, it might be better, I know that it will, I trust that will, because that is one of the most grand things I've learned in my life, but with that I've also learned it will without a doubt, never be the same. So while I'm not mourning the loss of my friend, I'm mourning the loss of the sameness today, that I've come to cherish here in Brasilia.

I suck a lot of times always at telling people how I feel about them, but I know Morgan reads this blog and I want everyone else who does, to know that you should trust your path in life, because there are people laid out upon it for you, they show up in the rough patches to hold your hand until the path smooths back out again. They make the unfamiliar seem like home and the things that seems insurmountable, mountable....birthing babies...in bathtubs...ahem.

I think the first thing I look for in a new place is a routine, especially for my kids. I set my focus on just that when we arrived, I never really thought about friends, they would come along as bonuses, but I'd be just fine without them...I thought, and maybe I would have, but I'd have never loved this place the way I do without Morgan.

It started out simply, Paul passed Morgan in the halls of FSI, he said there was a spouse in language with him that he thought I'd like, who'd also be posted in Brasilia. If I must admit when he told me she wore her backpack on the front, I wondered, how could we ever be friends. We never really met in DC except a quick wave as she passed us pushing strollers at mile one of a 5k race in Virginia (which now I know was her attempt to beat me) and over the tailwinds of her whizzing stroller we promised we needed to really meet up sometime.

Life in DC was crazy and it never happened.

When she showed up on my doorstep in Brazil, a blind play-date, arranged via email, having run three miles in a strange new country, she had a stroller full of little, blond, Phin, kid sized yogurts and bananas for us in our carless, hungry and culture-shocked state. I wasn't sure how we couldn't be friends. In fact she never showed up to my house again empty handed, including today.

I was horrified to be meeting anyone new in my workout clothes, in a house filled with State Department Drexel Heritage furniture where nothing said "Elise." Then I began to let go. By the end of our play date we'd shared birth stories, family secrets and Lord, who only knows, I may have even cried. Which sounds crazy, until you move to a foreign country, alone with children, then it is quite a common-place, first-date friendship activity.

In many ways we couldn't be more different, but she could wear her backpack on her front all day and I wouldn't care. She laughs at me for refusing to leave the house without nail polish on and I may or may not have witnessed her first manicure ever at a "nail party" I hosted at my casa. She reminds me of the more carefree side of myself, the one I'd like to see more and do, because of her example.

Together we've run miles, races and sprints. We've texted more than my TIM bill cares to admit and I've called her at odd hours to rescue us in tooth breaking emergencies, when our car or computer has broken down when I've left my iphone a top my car at 38 weeks pregnant and sent Paul out for ice-cream in a rainstorm. She's been the OnStar to my tour. The extended family that our Foreign Service life doesn't allow for.

We've shared midwives, doulas, bath-tub birth stories, a million trips to the "sand park" and "sand slides," awkward side-hug stories with embarrassment that lasts for days, bellowing laughter, parenting advice, parenting baguncas, great meals, bad....really bad...experimental dinners (mine), vacations and tears.

Oh and our kids. What once was three, multiplied to five in just two years. I love her kids like they were my own, and I certainly know mine love her like she was theirs. They even call her mom accidentally, yet frequently, which proves we have more in common than not. Kids always see people honestly without the blur we accumulate throughout our years.

I waited up all night, on-call, to pick up Phin on the night that Simon was born and held him in his first hours when he arrived.

Morgan is only the first person I told we were considering baby number three, the second person I told when we knew "it" was real, after she helped me buy delicious frozen yogurt and crappy Brazilian pregnancy tests and only the third person I'd ever dream of having witness Clem's birth. Unfortunately the stars didn't align and she held my hand and cheered me on via Google Voice from Utah. She was only the fourth person to see baby Clementine when she arrived after Paul, our midwife and doula.








We went out to celebrate one of our last nights in Brazil with the Loosli family and I asked Paul to take a few photos of Morgan and I...when you are the photographers it's hard to get in the picture. Even though none of these are "absolutely perfect" by my Type A personality standards, they express perfectly our friendship, the chaos of swirling kids, laughter, unfinished sentences and finally today more tears.

Over our last Frappe Cafe Nutella blended coffee drinks at our favorite coffee spot, Earnesto, and through the same front gate through which she strolled in QL18 when we originally met, we said goodbye and even though she is as American as some say is, "Apple Pie," Brazil already doesn't feel quite like Brazil without her. 




Boa Viagem my friend. Até mais tarde. Thank YOU.  I love you dearly.

e

1 comment:

morgan said...

Great, now I'm crying again!! Thank you. I love you too!