::: la la la la pennsylvania :::

Tomorrow.
5:00 AM.
A six and a half hour drive.
A day of orientation and commissioning.
And at the end of the day?
After we've been oriented
and he's been commissioned?
We leave.
And he stays.
Thanksgiving
will bring him home again,
but only for a week.
Long enough to pack for Africa.
Long enough to get a few more vaccines
shot into his body.
And then we stay.
And he leaves.
To another country.
To another continent.
To a year away.
He'll leave 18,
and come back 19.
So much,
so very much
can happen
in a year.
It will creep by
in the blink of an eye,
and July will be
here before we
even realize that September has left us.
He'll go away from this cold,
into that heat,
and come back to this heat.
A whole year of summer.
Six and a half hours.
Such a long
long,
long
drive.