Farewells between family members are rarely beautiful. They usually entail screwed up faces, wet cheeks, and runny noses. Fortunately, nothing of that sort happened today when I told my little brother to "have a safe flight" at the airport today.
Rusty flew back to Singapore today.
Perhaps it's because he's already been here in Düsseldorf for three months. Or perhaps because he bought so much junk food (he got a bucket of KFC hot wings, a fried fish bun, and a pack of smoked sausages) to fuel his flight home, inciting feelings of big sister disapproval.
I think it was most likely because. . .
We had such a great time together!
We got to hang out together a lot and even work together in the breakfast room. He got to know my in-law's better, and they all got to know his helpful and idiosyncratic ways as well =P It got to the point that he regularly called my mother-in-law 'Mama' and father-in-law 'Papa' LOL
Rusty's been a positive force in the home.
He's always been a thoughtful and helpful boy (especially to me), even into his teen years. During my university days, he would give me massages whenever my neck felt strained from staring at the computer too long, even creating a 'massage lottery card' in which I could win 5 minute sessions of free massages from him! He would buy me surprise cups of Bubble Tea (one of my favourite drinks) to perk my days up. During my stewardess days, he would come down to help me load and unload my luggage bags when into the car boot!
Here in Düsseldorf, I saw this side of him often as well. He often took initiative to offer help to anyone about to embark on a chore, be it washing a car, carrying heavy groceries from the car into the home, preparing ingredients for a meal, hanging out the wash to dry, folding clothes, cutting the grass, weeding the garden, etc. It was a real joy to have such a willing pair of hands hovering around. ;)
The many First's Rusty had here
Rusty told me that he'd experienced more first times during this three months than in his whole life (18 years)! Lol I made a list of his first's that came to mind.
First time. . .
(1) taking a flight alone
(2) picking wild vegetables in the forest
(3) chopping and neatening a tree branch
(4) cutting the grass with a lawn mower
(5) riding a roller coaster
(6) eating Greek food
(7) eating Turkish food
(8) playing frisbee
(9) almost drowning in the bathtub
(10) working together with his third sister
(11) washing a car
(12) and more. . .
I'm really glad that he found his time here to be fruitful and enjoyable.
This may well be the last time in a many years that he is able to simply come over and spend three straight months in Germany with me. When he gets back to Singapore, he will have to serve his National Service (all Singaporean males have to undergo almost 2 years of service in the armed forces). After that, university and other responsibilities of adulthood will start to set in.
The #BeautifulSunday contest is run by my fellow Singaporean steemian 
He's a really cool dude, and he's even funding the contest from his own pocket. So join the contest, or send his initiative a donation. Either way, it will go a long way into injecting more colour into this community each Sunday at the very least :))