Picture this:
You hear the door open; Shpresa and Gabriel are back from their walk. You look down the hall, and you see him being lowered to his feet, his fat little legs sticking out like prongs to meet the floor.
He turns to you and his whole face lights up with the beaming smile that says you are the person he loves most in the world. Shpresa puts a posy of marigolds in his dimpled fist, the flowers exactly matching the orange in his shirt, and he toddles straight down the hall towards you, with that dimple in his cheek and the fine brown hair falling across his forehead.
You crouch to meet him, arms open wide, and he throws himself against you and you lift him up. He sniffs the flowers, looking up at you, then pushes the posy into your nose and plants a wet kiss on your cheek.
You hug him tight - Hijito lindo, pequeño, precioso, mi amor.
That glowing puddle on the floor? That's me - a melting pool of pure happiness and love.
Terry will have to tell you himself about his life as an office drone; I will say that he continues to blow people away with how well he can speak Shqip. He’s not where he wants to be – which would be completely fluent – and this keeps him up at night studying grammars and children’s books, or surfing YouTube for traditional Shqip songs (which also impresses the heck out of people, that he even knows who Vaçe Zela is, for example, and that he knows all the words to “Unë Jam Njëzet Vjeç.” I’m very proud of him. 
