a farewell

cousins, originally uploaded by kelanew.

we said goodbye to john, karen, sarah, and katherine on friday. they're in switzerland now for a couple years.

before they left, we got the cousins together nearly every weekend (gram was helping watch the girls while john and karen packed). the little ones, hazel and katherine, won't remember, but for eva and sarah, who are so close, it's all a bit harder.

eva mostly understands -- but at her age she's still somewhat fuzzy on time. so, i had to explain that no, we won't be visiting them in a couple weeks or months. it won't be until way past winter (the farthest thing she can generally conceive of is "winter" or "your birthday" depending on what time of year it is :). so, now she is announcing "we're going to visit sarah in switzerland in the winter!" um, not exactly, but i closer.

the extent to which logical connections don't just fall into place was hammered in this weekend. we were at work day at grammie's house, and we were discussing eva's upcoming birthday party at gram's house. eva casually mentioned that sarah would be there.

sigh.

when she would mention her birthday and sarah a month ago, i just dodged the question ("we'll see") because there was no point telling her that far out that sarah was leaving. so now she knows sarah moved away, but somehow it didn't connect in her head that (therefore) sarah wouldn't be at her party. she was crushed. but, she's okay now, she was just surprised.

when they said goodbye it was a lot like any other goodbye, the "see ya' later!" sort of thing. but then i noticed eva was just standing there totally still, looking over at sarah in her bed. i crouched down, caught her eye, and asked,

"what are you thinking, baby?"
she smiled just a bit and looked back over in sarah's direction as she said, in that way only kids can, that is both matter-of-fact and conveys a ton of emotion:

"that i will miss her."