December 30

Tomorrow, we'll arise in the wee hours to begin our journey home. It's been a good 10 days in Maryland. Although we missed seeing several people, I feel like we did a good job of visiting with a decent number of my family members and old friends.

Still, good-byes are hard. Abby cried this evening after her cousins left, and quietly confessed that she'd wanted to cry this afternoon when we left my mom's house, but didn't because she wanted her sadness to be private.

Now to change gears for a brief moment.... As I was putting away the hair dryer I'd borrowed from my grandma, I saw this baseball cap that belonged to my grandpa resting in a basket:

He always (and I mean always) wore one like it; maybe not this exact one, but one with that same logo and design. He died back in 2009. Before Logan lost his ability to walk, I remarked to Adam more than once that he looked like a mini-Roscoe; the parallels were deliciously evident in how he shuffled his feet when he walked and how his Cars hat was always perched on his head. And in how he muttered to himself when he didn't know anyone could hear him.

So here's where I tie it all together and prove that I'm not merely rambling and waxing poetic. Like Abby, I'm sad to leave. But this hat reminds me that there are commonalities that hold families together, even when some of the members live far away -- even so far away as Heaven.

And I think that's a beautiful thing.