Friday, July 13, 2012

Little Girl Gone (Home)

Last night was difficult for me. I took my granddaughter to the library with me, then took her back home to her mommy.

This is not the usual order of things.  Usually, if I pick her up at her house to go to the library, I take her home with me. It's not anything we talk about, it's just how it works. It will only work that way for another year, at best. Next August she will turn five and have to start school.

"I want to go home with you," she said. She said it when she first got in the car. She said it when she got back in the car after her sojourn at the library. She said it when I pulled up in front of her house.

I hugged her and kissed her and hugged her again and just kept saying "Not this time. Not today."


When I got home the first thing my husband did was look for her. Then he asked why she wasn't there. Then he proceeded, throughout the evening, to tell me how much he had been looking forward to her.

I feel like I let them both down, badly. I hate to do that. Like I said, too soon I won't be able to bring her along as often. (Although I do hope we will someday move closer so it won't be as much a problem.)

Too soon, I'm afraid, her pappaw won't be able to enjoy her company.

I already know it will be too soon that he probably won't be able to be there foir her.

Have I cheated them both out of a memory-making moment?

Well, every moment should be made for memory, although we'd all have our heads so stuffed full of the past that we'd have no room for thoughts of the future, if we all lived that way.

Maybe, just maybe, the next visit will be more cherished because of the visit that wasn't.

Or perhaps we'll sneak off from our ordinary life and pay a surprise visit to her.

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