The Prodigal Son Returns

I stared at the computer screen transfixed. I was watching a flight tracking site as it ever so slowly recorded the progress of Alex’s return flight to the U.S. from Qatar. It was just a blip on a world map, but that blip contained a son who had been gone for almost 15 months. That’s a long time. The flight tracker gave me more information than I could possibly use: altitude, speed, heading, anticipated arrival time, etc. Everything but what they were serving for lunch. The blip inched its way into U.S. airspace and I experienced an odd sense of relief. As the altitude lowered in the plane’s approach into Dulles, I actually got excited. But, it’s not like we were there to greet him. No, that would come later once Alex had a couple of days to re-acquaint with friends who were just a tiny picture on Facebook or a faceless email account for so many months. I found it very amusing that literally an hour before his plane landed we got a postcard from Alex that he had sent from Nepal six weeks earlier, and, in his last line, he wondered whether it would arrive before he did. Just barely.

We had seen Alex twice in his travels, once in South Africa and again in Indonesia. Each was a sensational treat to have a reunion in such ridiculously exotic surroundings. But, having him home would be a treat second to none. After a whirlwind week of dinners galore with our friends in the D.C. area and then late nights with his friends, it was all pretty exhausting. We did return home to the Isle of Palms where Alex saw a far different house than the one he left in the closing days of 2008. And, he met Mojo for the first time who --doing his best Labrador routine -- was quite excited to see this tall, lanky stranger.

The effects of this trip will be with him for a long time, for sure. How could it not be? The other day, when we were driving through local streets, he spotted an animal and stared at it intently until he realized it was not a goat, but merely a dog. Maybe not what you’re apt to see in India, Nepal or Java, but really quite ordinary here, right? Really, his whole persona needs a re-boot to get into the flow of this strange new land, the U.S. Some friends have asked us whether we thought Alex would have any re-adjustment issues having been away so long (and in such wildly different environments). I think the jury is out on that one. It may depend in some measure on how successful he is in pursuing his dream of working in sports media. It is a venture that has focused his energies, and not just here but also abroad where he spent considerable time tracking down job possibilities and mapping a plan to guide him when he hit the ground.

Alex will be fine. Now, if he could only learn to pick up his stuff that has spread eerily like a lava flow around the house.