Our Whole Life Had to Fit Into Eight Bags

There is something slightly ridiculous about trying to reduce an entire family’s life to luggage.

Four people. Two checked bags each. Fifty pounds per bag. That was it.

When we knew we were leaving South Africa and starting over in America, there was no container following behind us filled with furniture and boxes. If we wanted something to come with us, it needed to fit into one of those eight bags.

First, we had to dismantle a life

We sold our furniture. We sold my car. Household things that were still useful went to family. Eventually, we moved in with my dad and tried to save as much as possible for whatever came next.

Then there were just eight bags, and four people standing around them trying to decide what deserved the space.

We packed them. And repacked them.

I think we packed those bags three or four times. Every time we thought we’d finally managed it, a suitcase would go onto the scale and tell us otherwise.

At some point we even stuffed jackets into pillowcases and carried them as pillows. Was that elegant? No. Did it save luggage space? Absolutely.

Some things were non-negotiable

Of course we brought clothes, laptops and the girls’ tablets. Eben’s PlayStation 5 survived the selection process. He brought his biltong maker and spice. I brought my sourdough bannetons and a frankly unnecessary number of kitchen and tea towels.

Our youngest had already said goodbye to so many toys that roughly half of her luggage ended up filled with favorite stuffed animals. There are battles worth fighting with a five-year-old. That wasn’t one of them.

And then there were our wedding photos

One suitcase contained something I was absolutely determined to bring: our wedding photographs. We have a 22-piece canvas set bought with money my grandfather gave us as a wedding present. Furniture could be replaced. Those couldn’t.

We wrapped them carefully, packed clothing around them and hoped they’d survive the journey. They did.

What do you take when you don’t know what your new life looks like?

We weren’t packing for a holiday. There wasn’t a return flight. Until our travel arrangements came through, we didn’t even know exactly where in America that life would begin. Then suddenly we knew: Spokane, Washington.

Cue a lot of Googling.

The things that didn’t fit

The hardest things we left behind wouldn’t have fit into a suitcase anyway: our families, friends and familiar places. On our final day, my dad took us as far as he could. I’m extremely close to my dad. There were a lot of tears.

There isn’t really a clever way to write that part. It was hard. Then we said goodbye, and we left.

Eight bags later

You can’t pack a whole life. What we packed were the things we thought might help us begin another one: clothes, sentimental things, stuffed animals, wedding photographs, a biltong maker, far too many kitchen towels and little pieces of home.

Now those eight suitcases are just luggage again. We didn’t need to fit our new life into those bags. We only needed enough to get it started.