Our last days in Potsdam were spent enjoying the company of the people, food, and sights we’d grown so accustomed to in our time there.

It was a weekend of not “Goodbyes…”, we hope, but “See you laters!” Hugs and tears, laughing and recounting. Dinners and breakfasts, a day at the park and lake, a time of soaking up all that was left of our time there. That was, before Cliff and I made our way together, but alone – in the sense that we’d be company-less for the duration of our stay in Germany. As much as I looked forward to our time in and around Munich, I hated to go.

When we pulled out of Babelsberg, by train, that last Sunday, we watched as our hosts, Kathi, Hendrik, and Jonas waved goodbye. Over the course of a week, we’d had a lot of those “Tschüssi!” (or rather “Bye, bye!”) moments as we’d make our way from the flat to wherever we were headed to serve or sightsee. And everytime, Jonas would cry. But this time the cry was different and was shared among the five of us, which, I think, was a surprise to us all.

“To miss,” I often find, is not an accurate description of what it feels like to find a distance now between yourself and some -one, -thing, -place you love.

What the word is, however, I haven’t come up with just yet.