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When you can’t pretend…

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… that everybody is going to fly over to see you in your new home in Israel.

:-(

Ted’s parents (white shirt, red shirt) should live and be well for many more years.  But they are not entirely young and not entirely healthy.

They’re not getting on a plane. 

It was wonderful that they came to visit us in Toronto once (twice?), but even that, 5 hours on a train, was a shlep.  Twelve hours on a plane – a plane which doesn’t fly direct from Ottawa, where they have lived for their entire married life – well, that isn’t happening.

Sometimes, goodbye is goodbye.

I am definitely getting off easier in this department.  My mother is more than a decade younger than Ted’s parents.  She travels.  She went to Europe on her own; she drives around Ontario, hops onto buses with tour groups.  Wonderful!

And I’ve been after my sisters for years that they need to get over to Israel; hopefully, this will be a push in the right direction. 

Actually, Ted’s brother beat them – he and my brother-in-law (taking the picture above!) spent a big chunk of time yesterday sharing pictures and memories of their Israel trip 18 years ago.  They’ve been there, done that, back when I was still not sure whether I ever wanted to go.  Of course, their trip included quite a few Christian sites, as will Ted’s sister’s when she gets over there to see us.  I’ll be happy to show her around if I can.

Despite the bittersweetness, they did pull together a very classy send-off, including a completely surprising (cuz his birthday’s in over 2 months!) 50th birthday party for Ted yesterday.

Hard to muster great big happy smiles – but we sure saw plenty of them this weekend.

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Very happy that everybody at that end has Skype and is actually figuring out how to use it… hopefully, we’ll keep those beloved faces grinning for many years to come.

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