The first day

I still had a little packing to do, so I got up pretty early this morning. It's pretty darn quiet with no animals around. I finished packing, then started doing some yoga, and about 20 minutes into it Laura and Keith came by. I'm thinking it was around 5 in the morning at that point. They brought coffee, so we had some, I showed Laura some last minutes things to do to help me out and before you knew it Pat was there to take me to the airport.

I took a last look around the house and it started to sink in that I was really leaving. I was hit by a flood of memories as I looked around. There, right there next to the bed and under the window, was the place that 12 years earlier Dizzy had been born. I remembered calling Natalie and seeing her a few minutes later watching, horrified, as Rup experienced the uncomfortable and bloody "miracle of birth". The memories of how the bedroom used to be two rooms and all of the other changes I'd made to the house came back as I walked from room to room. And everywhere were memories of Doug - how excited he was looking out the back windows at what was to become our garden. Him covered with grime and smiling after tearing out the ceiling in the kitchen. Him laughing at the top of his lungs at something that unexpectedly struck him as funny. Him sick in bed looking so helpless. And finally, the private memorial I had for him in our house that was filled with flowers and his spirit, after his mother said she would prefer if I didn't go to his funeral. I hadn't expected my last memories in the house would be of Doug, but of course it's right that they were. So much of my life there was tied to his.

After choked up goodbyes to Laura and Keith, Pat and I made our way to the airport with my luggage. I had two large checked bags and two carry ons. Not bad for a move from a completely filled house in Wichita to a flat in The Netherlands.

Unfortunately, I discovered once I got to the check-in counter that my largest bag was 25 lbs. overweight. (Never mind that everyone in the check in line weighed at least 25 lbs. more than me...) Turns out United now charges $380.00 for every over weight bag for flights leaving from Wichita! They said it was too discourage flyers from going over the normal weight limit. No duh, it works. Luckily Pat was at the counter with me, so we opened up the overweight bag and I started taking stuff out and throwing it onto the floor. She scooped it up and after a couple of trips to her car in short term parking, my bag was ready to go.

The flight was relatively uneventful, although I prefer my overseas flights not to be filled with high school glee clubs on their way to Europe for the first time. But that's another story...