Epilogue
William
As much as I loved our new home in the city, after a while it was time to plan a trip home. Both our sets of parents were nudging us to visit. They were dying to meet our Stella Rae, to the point of threatening to descend on us en masse if we did not show up in the near future. And while we loved them and would welcome them, we didn’t have a big enough house for all of them at once. Better we do this one trip, let them all meet her, and then they could come later, a couple or even a few, and stay in our guest rooms and on the pull-out sofa in my office
After all my years of military service where I lived out of a duffel bag for months at a time and could pack everything into it in a trice, we were getting ready to travel by air with a young lady whose minimum amount of gear for a run to the store involved more luggage than that. We gave ourselves the grace of disposable diapers o for the trip, which would be a help, and I was still mostly chest feeding, but at six months old, our little girl was starting to eat some purees and I had to figure out how to manage that.
Multiple outfits per day, socks, shoes, lotions and powders and shampoo… Toys. Chest pump. Salves and baby nose clearer. So many things. My mate and I had one bag between us; Stella Rae had three and the diaper bag as well as her stroller and car seat. The pile by the door before we left was terrifying.
But, when we were permitted to board early, we called it a win.
And when we arrived at the other end of the flight, emerging into baggage claim to find all our dads and siblings waiting, we learned the truth of it. They scooped Stella Rae out of my arms and left us to get all the bags off the luggage carousel. Glancing over my shoulder, I muttered, “They said they missed us, but they never wanted us at all.”
Stella Rae’s baby laughter had them all cooing and clapping and telling her how wonderful she was.
“I’m not sure it’s that dire, but they do seem enchanted with her.”
“They’re leaving for the car without us,” I pointed out, hanging luggage all over me.
“At least they need you for feeding her,” he said, taking some of the bags back and reaching for my free hand. “Look at the bright side. If they ignore us and fuss over her all the time, between feedings we can have some privacy in our room.” Since we’d learned that a baby didn’t allow for much of that, I was willing to concede the benefits of our little star in occupying our families.
We managed to catch up to the crew as they were fitting Stella Rae’s car seat into a van and getting her settled. I hurried to make sure the seat was properly installed and that she was fastened in properly before climbing in as well. Our greeting party filled two vans, but I was lucky enough to get to ride with our daughter, probably because someone realized she might need a feeding, which she did. Somehow Lars ended up in the other van with most of our siblings.
And off we went for a week of pack gatherings and barbecues. Musical evenings and every kind of party that our families could think up to welcome the prodigals home. They actually were glad to see us, although we’d never be as awesome as Stella Rae. We did share their opinion. And it was so nice to be there with them all. Maybe one day we’d move back, but, for now, we had a pretty good life in our city.
Still, it warmed my heart to see everyone together and so happy for us. And I had a big surprise for them all on our last night. We had decided not to tell them about the next little one on the way until then, so they wouldn’t fuss too much. I hadn’t forgotten the pain of bringing our daughter into the world, far from it, but Stella Rae was so worth it, and we wanted her to have a sibling close in age to play with. And we all agreed that our gathering would be a yearly event.
Next year, we’d have two little ones with us. It might be a challenging trip, but it would be wonderful and filled with love.