The journey from forbidding my husband to mention the word Australia, especially in front of family during the holiday season, to agreeing to accompany him on an initial visit in February was a long one. Mostly I refused to think about it, choosing to ignore the rather sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. However when he mentioned in January that we might not asked to be go after all, along with the expected wave of relief came a tiny twinge of disappointment. This I did not acknowledge to him initially, but the door of my mind and heart opened slightly.
About the middle of January I happened to share with two respected friends on a weekend retreat that Ross had nearly been asked to move his family to Melbourne. I described my feelings of dread and inadequacy to cope with such a move, and asked for their counsel. While both were sympathetic, they gently encouraged me to be open to God's will in this matter, and deep within I knew they were right. Within five hours of this conversation came the phone call from my husband's boss that started the ball rolling. This time around I felt an inexplicable peace and calmness that I can only attribute to divine intervention in my heart.
Shortly thereafter Ross was asked to accompany some colleagues traveling from Pittsburgh to the Heinz offices in Melbourne, and we decided I should go with him. The time had come to share this development with family and friends, something I very much dreaded. The responses, however, were mostly enthusiastic, something I received as pure grace. I wondered if I would be able to respond the same way some day if our own children informed us that they planned to move to the other side of the world, taking our grandchildren with them. We had given them the opportunity to make yet another sacrifice in the long line they have made already as our long-suffering parents. We were asking them, essentially, to not only receive the news without protesting, but to be happy for us, and they came through. Within days Ross's parents had checked out several books on Australia from the library and quickly knew more about it than we did. My own parents started making plans to visit.
A quick check of our passports revealed that mine would soon expire. We promptly sent it off to Philadelphia, paying the exorbitant fee for expedited service, confident that it would be back in time for our planned trip. We had not reckoned with the worst winter in Pennsylvania in recent memory. When it became clear that the government offices in Philadelphia would be closed for a full week due to the dumping of three feet of snow in the latest snowstorm, we got in the car and drove north to Detroit, away from the snow, where I was able to apply for a new passport in person. It arrived just two days before our flight to Melbourne was scheduled to depart.
We now had tickets for a five day trip to the land down under, just weeks before Ross's 40th birthday. Underneath the excitement of traveling to a new continent, however, lurked the apprehension of the big decision yet to be made.
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