We dropped my brother Danny off at the airport a few days ago. Seattle was the last leg of his long journey back to the states, and he was returning to China, the place he has called home now for six going on seven years. And oh, Dear Reader, I was sorry to see him go. I suppose it went a bit like this: I stood on the curb at the departures area, while Danny reached in the backseat of the car to give his little niece a great big hug goodbye. I tried really hard not to cry -- honest, I did, but nothing doing, I cried anyway. This, in turn, made Danny yell that his street cred was evaporating before his eyes. Yes, well.
Back in the car a few moments later, and trying not to look at Emilia too much (on account of the copious tears that were streaming down my face), I sat quietly trying to pull myself back together. And then Emilia says, 'What? Are you sad because you miss your brudder, mama?' 'Yes, baby, I'm very sad.' I miss Danny so much. We all do.
Our plan that day was that we (that would be Danny, Kari, Emilia, and I) would wander around coffeeshops, bookstores, and wherever else we felt like, before Emilia and I had to drive him to the airport. Apparently my sister had to say goodbye as fast as she could and then dash, because she couldn't stand it and didn't want to cry. Meanwhile, she didn't tell me this was her plan until we were talking on the phone two days later. This is why I spent twenty minutes wandering around Gap, getting highly annoyed, buying Emilia a shirt, and getting ready to accuse her of turning into our mother (who has a serious issue with disappearing the moment you walk through the front doors of a shop -- any shop -- causing you to wander around for the next three hours looking for her...).
Anyway, I will stop rambling on about it, but not until I say this: I wish my brother lived closer. I wish we were part of eachother's everyday lives. I wish this wasn't the first time he met Emilia. I wish we could go and visit him in China. I wish that our plan to visit him in his city next summer (not this summer coming up, but the one after that) was not so far off. I wish he could come over for dinner more often, and I promise not to cook up rather dry looking salmon again. (It's Lent and it was all QFC had!) And I promise to throw a fit if he ever tries to give me more of that nasty ol' raisin salad he got from Whole Foods on his way out of town. 'Oh Tonya, it'll be way too annoying carrying it through the airport. You take it...' Yuck. And above all, I hope he is alright. I hope so much that he is happy in the little Chinese life that he is carving for himself. He is my little brother, after all. *sniff sniff*
Alright, upward and onward.
