I suppose in the end the thing that makes one like a place is one's affection for the people one knows there.

On Saturday, I said good-bye to my family.

We had a party for me. It was small but perfect -- all the right people where there: Oma and Opa, Cees and Martine and Ties, Rens and Eefje, Lieke, Ruud, Bas, Rik, Willem, and Stefan, Carley (who is back visiting for Carnaval) and of course the kids. Notable absences were Harrie and Toos, who had already left for their vacation, and Lieke's Willem, who was playing in a tennis tournament.

We talked, ate Chinese, indulged in the chocolate fountain. Ed was my first good-bye. Easy enough, because he doesn't know what's going on.

Kate was a toughie. My little Kate, my sweet bear, mijn beste meisje, especially during these last few weeks. She suddenly got really tired, started crying and screaming, and wanted little to do with me at the time -- she was just begging to go to bed. She refused to hug me, even. Tragic. So after Carien put her in bed, I hurried up there, hoping to still catch her awake.

I've spent the last few weeks talking about my leaving, knowing that it would be a difficult concept for her to grasp and remember. But everytime I talked about it, she got quiet and sad, then asked if I was taking a vliegtuig to Amerika.

She was still awake when I got up there, so I went in and sat on her bed. She was still recovering from her crying fit. I told her I just wanted to say good-bye, because I was leaving that night and wouldn't get to see her again for a long time. She started crying and trying to scramble out of bed. "Ik ook mee!" she kept saying: "I'll go, too."

I paused to compose myself before rejoining the party.

Then it was Pete and Carl. I went to read them a story. There was a small fight, which I won't get into, but it resulted in Carl going to his bed and me reading a story only to Pete. He paused me halfway through:

"Are you going to cry when you get home?"

"Ja, schat, I'm pretty sure I will," I said. "I'm going to miss you."

Then, so quiet, so sincere and vulnerable and perfect, he said, "I'm going to miss you, too." And he started crying.

I held him a while, said I'd come back to visit, but it just wasn't enough. So I told him I'd call him next Saturday when they get home from their ski vacation, and I'll ask for him and pretend to be one of his girlfriends from school. That made him laugh. He told me I had to do it in Dutch.

Carl came over, wanting to be read to after all. We finished the book. I tucked Pete in, then went to Carl's room where he was curled up on the bed. He ignored me when I spoke and kept covering his head -- typical for when he's upset. I told him I'd miss him. He didn't say anything. I told him if he ever wanted to send me a message, to just tell the constellations and they would bring it to me the next night. I suggested going through Orion. He spun around immediately.

"Does that work real?"

"We'll have to try it."

Good night. Good-bye.

Then it was good-bye to Rick and Carien -- my bosses, my co-workers, my friends. So many thank yous. So many tears.

As Ruud drove me away, I looked back to the big window where I had sat with the kids many times, teaching Ed how to wave good-bye to whomever was driving away to work -- and there were Rick and Carien, waving good-bye to me.

I couldn't stop crying.