When I walked in the door and saw that note on the table, my heart dropped. “Good-bye!” written in my wife’s handwriting. I started calling her like crazy — no answer. Then I remembered the little security cam I’d installed months ago above the front door (she did not know about it). Since I travel so much, it gives me peace of mind.
I opened the app, rewound it to two hours ago, and what I saw brought me to tears.
My wife and our kids were sitting on the living room floor, gathered around a calendar. My wife was crying softly. I turned up the volume on my phone to hear what was happening.
“I know, babies, I know,” she was saying to the kids, wiping her eyes. “Daddy comes home today, but he has to leave again next week. We have to be strong for him. We can’t make him feel guilty for working.”
She grabbed the notepad and a marker. “Let’s practice, okay? Let’s practice saying it so we don’t cry when he leaves next time.”
She wrote “Good-bye!” in big, bold letters on the paper and placed it on the table.
“Ready?” she asked, her voice trembling. “One, two, three… Good-bye, Daddy!”
But the kids didn’t say it. They just hugged her. And my wife—my strong, resilient wife—buried her face in her hands and sobbed. “I can’t do it,” she whispered. “I hate that word. I hate that he’s always gone. I just want him home.”
The video showed them hugging for a long time. Then, my wife took a deep breath, slapped her cheeks, and stood up.
“Okay! No more sadness!” she declared, though her eyes were still red. “Daddy is coming home today. Let’s go to the store and get the ingredients for his favorite lasagna. We are going to celebrate him being here!”
They rushed out the door in a hurry to beat the traffic, leaving the “practice note” on the table—the note that had nearly stopped my heart.
I sat on the couch, watching the empty room on my phone screen, tears streaming down my face. I realized then that my “providing” for them was costing us everything that actually mattered. The money wasn’t worth the heartbreak of my absence.
Just then, the front door handle turned. My wife and kids walked in, grocery bags in hand, laughing.
When she saw me, she dropped the bags and smiled. “You’re early!”
I didn’t say a word. I just walked over, pulled her and the kids into the tightest hug of my life, and whispered, “No more traveling. I’m finding a local job. No more goodbyes.”
