December was a world-wind month. We had so much going on. Chen seems to have settled in with his new family and is doing well. Julius has kept us in forward motion never giving us much of an opportunity to look back. Normally we have a regular artificial "plastic" tree for Christmas. To say that this year would be different was an understatement. Julius manage to convinced us to march out into the woods during a classic snowstorm and cut our tree down. Right before Christmas Julius decided to take up baseball, luckily like skateboarding and snowboarding he only injured himself lightly. He had hurt his wrist with snowboarding(It looked like a hairline fracture but luckily it wasn't). He received a black eye with baseball for Christmas(he was playing catch during a snowstorm). So far weight training has not given us any cause for injury just sore muscles, (I say this last bit softly as I knock on wood). Although late last week I was making breakfast as he wandered into the kitchen and began making his protein shake,
"I should be leaving right now." he commented rather matter of factual.
"OK where are you going." I answered, always on guard, with Julius he is independent and one can never tell what he is going to do next.
"Nooooo, I should be leaving back to Germany right now." Julius has a long drawl on certain words when he needs to make a point.
I stopped, it hit me like a lead balloon. Where did the time go? Half way already? The last two months had passed like the wind. My heart sank as I thought how our lives were made so different by this young man and how different they will be when he leaves. Will we ever see each other again? Will we ever laugh in the same room? Probably not. My eyes welled and I turned to wash dishes so he would not see what I knew to be inevitable.
"Did you know I was supposed to go back today?"He continued on as only Julius can, I just stared into the sink of disappearing bubbles, realizing like the bubbles, Jules would be gone soon from our life, leaving an deep imprint in a Julius sort of way quickly, lightly, happily.
I am already crying at the thought of there will be no more words of wisdom, "Like you must live every moment in happiness" or "I have many small accidents so I will never have a big one" (that one has me worried.) or why don't Americans take the time to write wishes? What he doesn't understand is although he is here to learn from us and our lives, he has taught all of us so much more about life.
