End of an era

Call me whatever name you wish but I just can't start telling you about life in Mumbai without first writing about the end of our first tour in Barbados.  You must forgive me for being so absent from blogging for uh, 7 months!  To recap our last two months at post... let's just say we learned what stress looks like and it is not pretty.  Here are the high- (or low) lights:

• One evening in early November, all 3 of us were home, had dinner, were paying attention to S, and yet he still fell and cut his left arm pretty severely and needed 17 external and 5 internal stitches.  We learned that when our child gets hurt, I'm a wreck and M is a rock.  S was incredibly resilient through 2 whole months of bandage changes 3-5 times per week, multiple antibiotic courses, stitch removals and more.  Thankfully his arm has healed well, and on the bright side, he can invent a terrific fictional story one day if he wants to in order to explain the scar!  Meanwhile, I really could have done without hearing all the time how, with a boy, it will just happen again and perhaps often. 
• We have some awesome friends who rallied around us with S's injury and our impending departure.  One showed up at the emergency room to be the fun distraction S needed through the whole ordeal.   She also held my hand as I was having a very hard time handling my baby being hurt so badly.  Friends came to visit and play with him when he was home-bound but tired of his parents (who were also tired).  A few weeks later, our friends hosted a large and incredibly fun going-away party for us.  They helped us shred papers after our shredder was sent off.  They mailed a box of stuff to us when we overestimated how much would fit in our luggage.  These few close-knit relationships made it all the harder to leave and I just wasn't myself while having to come to terms with it.  
• We had 2 visitors during the last month, and while we hope we showed them a good time in B'dos, I know we didn't show them the best of ourselves.  My brother came for a week right before pack-out, and a Foreign Service friend came to visit from X-mas to New Year's.  While it was great to see them and made us feel connected to our non-Barbados lives, it was also stressful to make sure they were having a good time.  We have decided, for our sake and for the sake of our guests, not to have visitors again in the last month (perhaps 2) of any assignment. 
• For sake of posterity, I must also tell you that we went to a concert 2 days before flying out with some friends.  One of our neighbors/friends is a very popular Barbadian singer and he was going to perform at this concert.  His wife and kids were at our going-away party the night before.  Imagine our surprise and delight when during his performance, he gives M and me a personal shout-out to bid us farewell.  It was an incredible moment and one we will always cherish. 

I realized I only do not like this career which requires moving frequently during the week the movers come to pack our stuff; it is so stressful to figure out what is going where, what you can live with or without for weeks and/or months at a time, etc.  But as a senior manager said recently, it is actually the first AND last 30 days of any person's assignment that are the most stressful, and how much support one gets during that time determines to a great extent how one feels about that post.