Leaving
Thursday, August 21, 2008 8:53I helped Emma pack. I gave gave her a new journal with everyone’s contact information in it. I told her she could call me any time, no matter what. When her mom came, I told her I loved her and to be good and stroked her hair one more time and then she walked out the door. I called after them to drive careful and fly safe and then I closed the door.
I remember when I put Ethan into his dad’s van, thinking it would only be for a couple of months, and then his dad told me he was taking him. I screamed and cried and when I watched him drive away with my baby, my heart followed them and didn’t return to me until a long time after. When I closed the door, yesterday, I felt a very similar lurch. Maybe not as extreme, because maybe I’ve figured out this long distance parenting thing a little bit, but still, I felt it.
When you lose a child that way, it is absolute emptiness, hopelessness and helplessness. To know your kid is still out there but completely unreachable.
