Don't read this, Darcee. It's bad enough one of us spends the day bawling our eyes out...

I went shopping yesterday with Sofi. We went to buy a baby gift for a dear friend from Orlando who was pregnant when we moved and had her baby, a little girl, just a few weeks ago. It's her fourth child, the first one I won't know and love before they walk or talk. I bought a lot of cute baby girl things. A lot. J nearly had a heart attack when he saw the bill. I think I was trying to buy something not in that store...

My sister had her first baby last fall, before we had any inkling of the eventuality of this move. She had a baby girl. I was able to fly home to be with her the morning she was born and spend ten days helping Polly and getting to know Felicity. It was precious, but it nearly killed me to leave. I left not knowing when I could come back, perhaps not till Felicity was walking and talking, maybe not seeing them again before they left for the mission field. I left one sister with a newborn baby and one sister halfway to her due date with her first boy.

Another sister had a baby last fall that I still have not met. She and her husband live on the other side of the country and Lord knows when we will see them again. It's already been years...

Despite the move "back home", I still feel as though pieces of my heart are scattered all around the country in different places and the effort of reaching out and finding our place and our people here feels momentous today. I feel a little worn, thin; perhaps gunshy. If, God forbid, we have to move again, who will I be leaving behind this time?