Chapter 22
Man, that flight was a blur. I watched the flight tracker on the screen, both major legs of the journey, non-stop. I couldn’t believe we were flying away from the risk and the unrest, toward freedom, toward my family.
Landing in Minneapolis and going through immigration is when I caught a glimpse of the damage done to me emotionally. After almost an hour in line it was our turn. We stepped up to a counter with an older gentleman and I placed my things on it. I handed him Timos’ sealed envelope and the man gently moved my purse, so he had room to work. I immediately began to go on and on about how sorry I was, trying to placate him. He stopped what he was doing and looking at me he said, “It’s okay now. You’re back in America. You’re home.”
With tears rolling down my face I realized I had sounded panicked. I had actually been panicked for a very long time, so I took a deep breath and felt something in me relax and let go. We were home. I left that line with Timos’ temporary Green Card. It was over.
Garen, Keegan and Zade met us at the airport in Omaha. Timos was so overcome at the sight of them that he stopped walking and just stood there hiding his face and crying. I shifted everything I was carrying so I could pick him up and carry him the rest of the way. He clung to Garen for the longest time and then Keegan and Zade grabbed him and held him and Timos was instantly as in love with them as they were with him.
Luckily Garen remembered Timos’ coat that I had bought before I went to Uganda. That night Timos saw snow for the first time and got to have a snow fight with his big brothers, in the parking lot of the restaurant we stopped at for dinner.
I remember trying to tell everyone what had just happened to us in Uganda, but in the joy of having Timos home and the shock of it almost not happening, no one said anything. I was shut down at a moment when I very much needed to be held and comforted. I finally just sat in that restaurant pulling my silence around me like a protective cloak and was so sad that no one even tried to understand. My heart broke, but I just gave everyone else what they needed. To pretend that we had not been in intense danger and that I was just fine.
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