Tonight began what I would consider the first of a long series of goodbyes for our friends in Hong Kong.  One of the dads in our friend groups is traveling this week, so today was our last chance to catch him before we take off and he returns.  So we had a nice brief encounter this evening before both parties had to go, and then they gave us a book as a going away gift, from their son to ours.

This book is super cool!  Photos from the first few meetings up until very recently, chronicling the time we and our children have known each other.  Not only photos, but videos embedded with QR codes, so all we have to do is scan them and then they pop up on our phone.  Amazing what they can do these days 😉  The book was so cool because it showed all the little guy’s little friends as they morphed from babies to toddlers, and the little guy looked at this book for at least 30 minutes after he got it.

I have to say it made me almost cry tonight.  I have always been a guy on the move, starting from the very early years of my life, we moved a lot.  Lots of moving, always the next place, always a new set of friends.  As I got older, it was moving for opportunities as life presented them; surely the “shallow roots” a byproduct of a lot of moving growing up.  The friends you make are not always deep-seeded friendships as you go from one place to another, sometimes for a temporary time period (for example, graduate school).

But this was a little different because it made me realize how close I am with these other parents, and how we have been “in the trenches” together learning about having children this last 15 months.  We have listened to each other, supported each other, and just basically became good friends in a pretty short time.  So to leave these friends and go back to Sweden is bittersweet.  Sure we all say “we will see each other again” but with this friend group, I truly hope we will.