Numbered days

A battle report from the home front

Raising four children, my husband Nat and I wanted them to know the world did not revolve around them. Not to diminish them but to free them. To release them from relentless self-focus to see a world of beauty and wonder, and need that is theirs to enter, enjoy, and serve. 

When I took long reporting trips away from the kids, their dad made life at home rich and my travels a family affair to revel in. We traveled together too. One year we took from school two high schoolers, a fifth- grader, and a first-grader to travel around the world over several months. We celebrated Chinese New Year with friends in Macau, snorkeled off the Sinai Peninsula, and spent a week among garbage village workers in Cairo.

Great Wall of China, January 16, 2003

It was an unforgettable, eye-opening time, sleeping as a family in cramped quarters and moving among the 96 percent of the world who aren’t Americans. In our circumnavigation we saw our small place in an ever widening tapestry. We never regretted the b…