Kalib goes away - I wonder how he will have changed when next I see him, six or seven weeks from now? (Part 1)

Very early this morning, Kalib (and his mother Lavina and grandmother Margie, my own dear wife) boarded an Alaska Airlines jet and headed for Phoenix. From there, he and Lavina were going to a workshop in Flagstaff and Margie would meet her sister and head back to her native home, the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

Later, Lavina and Kalib will join them. Jacob will go down, too.

Shortly before they boarded the plane, we all met at the home of Kalib's Auntie Melanie in Anchorage.

Kalib found a stool to get under.

Those are Charlie and Melanie's tomato plants behind them. Tomotoes don't work around here if you plant them outside - the growing season is just too short. So they planted them inside.

We were all going to go to Arizona for an Apache Sunrise Dance that Margie's sister was going to be a Godmother for, but a relative of the medicine man died and so it has been put on hold for a year.

Margie had not secured her ticket yet, but I still had mine from last year, when I didn't go because I wound up in the hospital. That ticket had to be used this month or go to waste, so I gave it to Margie.

After giving Kalib a diaper change, his dad tossed him around a bit.

They will be gone for three weeks, but when they come back, I will be on the Arctic Slope until late July. So I will not see them for at least six, maybe seven weeks. I hate to think of all that I am going to miss. He will practically be grown up by then; he will be reciting poetry, and batting a baseball.

I will wonder where the time went and how I missed it all.

Kalib and Diamond.

We all decide to go and check out Lisa's new apartment. Kalib is first to the door.

He walks away from Melanie's Duck Downs apartment toward the car.

He does not get into the car, but onto his dad's shoulders who walks over with Charlie. It is still hard for Margie to walk very far, so we drive. Melanie comes with us because she knows where the new apartment is and we do not.

Immediately after this scene falls behind us, we hear Kalib scream in grief. He did not like to us drive away without him.

Inside Lisa's empty kitchen, Kalib watches Juniper go for the fake mouse. Lisa and Bryce moved because they have not had water in their old apartment for the past month. Their landlord ignored all their pleas to get the problem fixed.

So they moved. Now, the next battle will be to get their $1000 security deposit back.

Before we left, Kalib tipped over a box and out came this cat thermos. Melanie was amazed. The thermos is her's and she has been looking for it for awhile. She was a little chagrined with Lisa. Lisa said that she had planned to return it sometime when Melanie was not home.

Then Melanie would have returned and there it would have been. She would have wondered if she was going crazy.