Travel makes the heart grow fonderish.

So there was some crazy sadness in me that just wouldn’t go away. Stupid miscarriage. And Mr. Husband and I tried so hard to focus and focus and not let it get in the way. But it did. There was anger and the unattainable unknown. There were doctors appointments, a slew of them. Question after question went unanswered. In the end, all we got was that there was no answer. There was no reason. Test after test reveals that we are normal. So far as the first level of doctors can see. It’s common, they say. And so we go on. Waiting.

But the waiting doesn’t allow for the super closeness that we needed. There is a one-month probation. We were on probation, restricted and constrained from jumping right back into the game. That’s tough, not being able to touch and enjoy life as we want to at that very moment. And so I went to Germany. Dive into work and forget my troubles. Drink the wonder of the Fatherland—enjoy beer at beer’s finest.

Where did that leave Mr. Husband? Where did that leave me? It left us on different continents. It left us both in a kind of limbo. How do we get back to where we once belong? It was one thing after another. There was no time to stop and think, but we did. It seems like we did a lot of that, but it was never enough. We kept to ourselves, watching Netflix and killing zombies via our trusty Xbox. But a void was ever-present. We needed to reconnect. A bigger loss was necessary. A loss that was felt by distance.

I buried myself in work, relishing the fortune I had to be able to travel and stretch my work legs. I went to Berlin on a trip that took 24 hours to get there, going through sunny Paris where I got to spend three hours in the corner of gate D24, drinking warm Heinekens and trying to stomach a chewy baguette. Finally getting to Berlin, I found my luggage lost to me and still in New York City. The Berlin baggage handler gave me a lengthy lecture on being a “Klusendorf” and not speaking German before he told me that my luggage simply didn’t make it. Quick wardrobe change in the Berlin airport and 300 Euros later, I was ready for Monday morning’s meeting. Picking up my luggage back in Berlin, ready for the flight to Heidelberg, I was glad to see the Heidelberg Marriott where everything seemed to fall into place. All the while, my boss’s Blackberry doesn’t work, so I have no clear and direct communication with Mr. Husband. He is lost to me.

Yet, when I finally get to my room in the Marriott, room number 118, and open up my luggage, tiny little love notes float out from between my not-so-carefully folded clothes. Tiny little love notes that remind me that back home and forever there is someone who is rooting for me. I laugh as I look at a scarily cut square that has a note scrawled upon it about what a good job I’m surely doing. Later, I borrow a phone from another co-worker and mention the silly-looking square. Mr. Husband smiles through the phone and informs me, “that’s a trapezoid.”
Of course it is. How silly of me not to know. Nothing but the ever unusual and wonderful from Mr. Husband. On Wednesday morning, I find a trapezoid love note tucked in my favorite pink argyle socks that mentions how one day we will be parents once we get past all of this … this.

All the sudden, I’m home again.

Yet, coming home was still hard. Facing the disappointment all over again. I pride myself on being resilient. Ok, so, maybe miscarriage with the one I love is not something I can wake up the next day and bounce back from—who knew. I didn’t. The love was always there, despite how distant and hurt the both of us were and are. We remain. We are strong. At least we're putting up a damn good front of it now.

Yesterday, I felt real again. It was me speaking through the phone. I wasn’t pretending. Not like I was pretending before, because I didn’t know. I was masking. Now I’m real. Now we’re ready? We did a lot of making up in these last two days. It’s not that we were fighting, it’s that we just were not right. Ah, look at the struggle. Is this preparation? I can only hope. Like we had to jump through hoops to make us appreciate? I can only say this now looking forward to hope.


This marriage, this life, this love is such an amazing ever-turning thing. May I always turn over to see my Mr. Husband. Sure, his morning breath could be better, but I’d miss it if it didn’t curl my eyelashes in just the exact-eye-opening way it does now.