A Farewell
Lacey went home. It was the day before we left for Florida. Aubrey and I had wanted to take her with us but were no match for the infuriating series of seesawing permissions and intricate no-man’s-land of red tape.
Aubrey and I took Lacey to her eleven am flight together. As I hand her the third of three bags, I ask for a hug. For only the second time since we met, Lacey embraces me.
As I hold her in the frigid February air, I can't help but be grateful. Lacey introduced me to silliness. Take it from someone who tends to take everything severely: silliness is underrated. My mind wanders to a family meeting several months prior: Aubrey and I were discussing plans for the week ahead when Lacey interrupted.
"Lacey," I said, "do not interrupt adults. You're becoming an adult and we're going to treat you like one more and more. Be professional."
Lacey, as it turns out, would never let this last sentence go. The slightest slip-up from me would invoke a "be professional," from Lacey. Feigning scorn, she always delivered the rebuke with a straight face and a stern voice. Leave my cell phone on in church? "Be professional." Fall off my bike? "Be professional."
Her best work was done when I actually should have been professional. Once, while driving home with both kids in the Subaru, the car in front of us stopped short, leaving us to fend for ourselves on the leftover scraps of a midwinter highway.
Though simple in its layout, the Alaskan highway system poses unique challenges that enliven even routine drives. Late December commutes often pit the driver against cars both mobile and abandoned in a formidable arena of snow, ice, and speed.
As the Subaru's 70-0 mph times are somewhat hampered when the Glenn Highway is covered in ice, I was forced to veer off into the precarious bounds of the unridden shoulder on the right, while the front of my car turned left. Mid-slide, I noticed the car behind us closing fast and reacting slow. Faced with the options of either getting rear-ended or taking the unknowable treacheries of the shoulder head-on, I chose, to the extent I could choose, the latter. Steering into the slide, I floored it. The Subaru, still sliding parallel to the lanes, now added a corrective, leftward rector. The car behind shot past and disappeared into an explosion of snow as it slammed into the berm.
"FUUUCK!!" I screamed as we slid to a stop, perpendicular to traffic.
Lacey, as casually as if we were on an afternoon stroll through Far North Park, looked at me and said, "Be professional."
We both burst out laughing.
Back at the airport, Lacey pulls away from the hug and looks up at me. I do what I can to choke back tears. I'm glad that Lacey's mom gets a second chance with her children. I'm happy that Lacey gets to be with her family again. Her outcome is not always the case.
But foster care inevitably leaves some hearts in pain. I knew she would be going home to a life that was far from ideal, in a city she had never seen, surrounded by people she had never met.
I smile, knowing this might be the last time I’ll see her and not wanting our final experience to be a sad one. Then, without warning, tears fall from my eyes.
"Jon," Lacey says, "be professional!"
With that, she turned and walked into the small but bustling Alaska Airlines terminal and out of my life.