When we were in Kenya, Bill and Carolyn (Bill’s father and stepmother) had not yet sold their house. The house they’ve lived in for 24 years; the house in which they combined their two families; the house on whose family room floor, nineteen years ago, I fell in love with my husband.
Now it is sold.
When we were in Kenya, Scott and Lynne and their children had not yet moved to Shanghai. It was decidedly in the works; it was happening; it was Absolutely Imminent. But they were still on Millington Court in Aurora, Illinois.
When we were in Kenya, Charlene’s mother was still alive. She was still with her daughter; she had just become part of Beacon of Hope; she had a Hope and a Future.
Now Nancy’s Greatest Hope is realized, and she has exchanged a future for a timelessness that we cannot begin to understand.
And Charlene, at nine years old, is an orphan.
