Tuesday Night Albania Time.

I am in Albania.  With Ellie.  Nathan is in Ohio with Reni and the rest of the Waggoner family.

The last I shared on the blog ‘twas the night before (Sunday).  7 hours later we would get a phone call that would change our plans dramatically.

I wish I could write more but the details are still coming to light.  Stephen called us at 6:45am to say that mom had collapsed unresponsive Monday morning at home in Ohio, just hours after returning from our commissioning service and farewell in Illinois on Sunday.  She was being anesthetized for surgery to relieve the swelling on her brain.

We would later find out that she had incurred a serious stroke.  With no history of high blood pressure, this was a major shock.  We were beyond grateful that Dad had not yet left for work when the episode took place.

We didn’t know what else to do but pray and keep packing as her condition wouldn’t be known for several more hours.  Needless to say, we were extremely distracted, but comforted by the frequent beeping on the laptop indicating that someone had posted a word of encouragement on Facebook and indicated that they were praying for Mom and Dad.

We left for the drive up to O’Hare in the early afternoon, relieved to hear that Mom had made it through surgery.  As we approached Joliet we got a little bit more information on her condition and as we pow-wowed at a Burger King while the kids played on what had to be the State’s smallest ‘playplace’ we decided that Nathan had to go see his mom.  Ellie was distraught.  I know she had no idea how ill her beloved Nonna was, but in her mind, the airport was within breathing distance and all of a sudden, it appeared it might not be happening?

There’s no going back now, but we decided to split up.  I would go ahead to Albania and start the task of setting up our apartment and getting the downstairs apartment ready for Abby and Anna (arriving on the 21^st).   We decided to postpone Nathan and Reni’s departure for about 8 or 9 days.  We had been told that we would know a lot more about Mom’s prognosis at about the one-week mark.

So hastily in the parking lot we did a quick survey of our carry-ons and luggage.  Since the contents of our checked luggage was pretty much shuffled altogether, we didn’t think it really mattered which pieces I brought.  As for the carry-ons, I ended up taking four backpacks, none of which Ellie could carry but I somehow managed with one on my back, one on my front, and one in each hand (yes, my arms feel like noodles right now).

With a dying cell phone, Nathan and Reni peeled out for the 5-6 hour drive to Ohio and I numbly climbed in Mom and Dad’s suburban with Ellie for the short trip to O’Hare.  The only thing we intentionally split up was to make sure that Reni had an i-Pad and Ellie had a Kindle Fire. 

After checking in I was able to briefly cross paths with one of our classmates from last month.  His flight was an hour before ours and he was bright spot on an otherwise dark day.  Ellie lit up when she saw him and gave him a big hug.  I had hoped that we could grab a bite to eat with him but O’Hare has remodeled the security section of Terminal 5 and completely absorbed the entire food court area, so we said goodbye and I trust that he has arrived at his destination by now, safe and sound!

Ellie was a pretty good traveling companion, other than spacing out from time to time and not being as alert as I would have liked when we were walking through airports.  We had a couple of drama moments like when her loose front tooth really started coming loose and as she worked on it, bled a considerable bit.  She was fine until she noticed the blood, of course.  The other was handling the cabin pressure as we descended both times.  She must have had some sort of sinus congestion I was unaware of.  I felt helpless to help her in her pain and no amount of drinking water nor distractions could help.  I’m pretty sure the lack of a full night’s sleep played into a lower threshold for discomfort.  But once we were in the van and driving, she looked out the window at the lights of Tirana and asked, “Are we going to live here forever now?”  And as we’ve been opening suitcases and putting a few things away she has remarked over and over how happy she is to be here.  I’m blown away.

To everyone who prayed for us, thank you.  Everything related to traveling through the airports could not have gone smoother.  It was one of the least ‘stressful’ international trips I can recall making.  Of course, my mind was preoccupied with a million other thoughts.  I think the hardest part has been ‘not knowing’.  In an age when we’re accustomed to instant access to information, it was like slipping through an information black hole once I hopped on that Turkish Airlines jet – one that will last at least 48 hours.  We got to the apartment around 9PM Tuesday and we have no internet here.  Mandi had been checking FB for me and not seen any updates but promised to share that we made it here safely.  So I’m writing this post and will hopefully post it to the blog sometime in the morning, either from an internet café or when we get internet set up here at the apartment.

I’ve been re-living this weekend over and over in my head.  One of the topics we covered quite thoroughly at MTI was how to say ‘goodbye’ well.  I am so grateful we had the opportunity to have some time with Mom and Dad on Saturday to share words of love and appreciation with them.   I was so ‘in the moment’ though, that I don’t know that I took more than a handful of photos… The commissioning service on Sunday was a special time (I have a few more photos of that), we just missed Nathan’s sister Rebecca and my sister Jenny (and her family) to have our immediate families altogether.   It made leaving so much easier for us come Monday to have said our goodbyes well.

But then tonight I walked in the kids’ room in our apartment here in Tirana.  When I was here in March, I had made up Ellie’s and Reni’s beds with their special sheets and bedspreads so when they walked in the door, it would feel like home.  I pulled back the covers of Reni’s bed (to crawl into them for sleeping – the master bed is covered in boxes) and caught my breath, having forgotten that I had made up the bed with construction-themed sheets that Mom Waggoner had given him.  I just can’t imagine her not coming here to visit us someday in our new home.

As for Nathan – I have no idea where he is emotionally right now.   I can imagine a bit how he might be feeling when it comes to creature comforts though.  I unpacked suitcases for an hour before I found any clothing belonging to me.  A good deal of the clothing I found belonged to him, so I have no idea what he’s going to wear until he rejoins us.  I think I have 4 t-shirts and several pairs of jeans that should get me through.  The rest of my clothes here are for winter.  Somehow we managed to take the OPPOSITE suitcases that we should have taken.  What are the odds?

One thing I did find in my unpacking tonight was our little re-chargeable blue-tooth speaker  for our iPod (I have a feeling Nathan has the power cord, so I’m using it frugally).  I put some worship music on ‘shuffle’ and the first song that came up and started playing?  “He Leadeth Me” recorded by our Global Café band about 6 years ago… What a blessed reminder when our world feels upside down from what we expected.  Grateful to be following our Leader.

Cydil, in Albania

P.S.  Would you pray for Ellie?  This evening the sounds of the city are new and scary to her.  It’s definitely not helping us overcome jet lag!