(late March: just realized I didn’t publish this post correctly when we started getting questions about updates as to when we were returning!)

We’re seated outside the gate, looking out the large glass windows of Incheon airport. A sea of teal blue colored planes line the gates, and there is always one on the move on the tarmac.

It has been a non-stop week of packing, cleaning, and trash hauling for me. And a week of tidying things up at the office for her.

There were still the regular hospital visits and scans of course. I’m too mentally fatigued to delve into them coherently at the moment. But one more compression fracture, at T1 this time. Perhaps it’s vastly minor compared to the pain from cord compression, but I’m awestruck as to how she handles the pain these fractures must generate.

Seoul has been kind to us, and we were very much looking forward to walking the neighborhood river walk in the coming spring, lined with the bloom of cherry blossoms. We constantly wonder if we should stay another month, or two. It has come time to leave and be physically located where we identify as “home”, to continue her treatments.

As the sun sets today, we will be seated aboard one of those teal blue planes, headed home. Home to the Pacific Northwest. And we’re both looking forward to it.

Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer