Miracle

While I was gone, R. had a couple of bad moments, often involving screaming at five am. While she was able to be calmed, J. did not get the most restful weekend. This surprised me because in the days leading up to my leaving, she would have a litany of things she would tell me. "Mommy go see Grammy. Mommy come back. Daddy take care of me." This was far better processing about an impending departure than we had seen, so I was hopeful we had turned another corner.  While there was interrupted sleep, it could have been (and had been) much, much worse. Of course, I also wasn't one of the people being awakened in the wee hours of the morning. I'm still going with progress, even if very incremental, has been made.

What was interesting to me, though, was what happened this morning. First, she slept in. This is not a child who normally sleeps late, but her sleep had been interrupted, too, so she must have been tired. I was glad she could ratchet down enough that she could actually rest. But here's the thing that made me stop and pause. At one point this morning, she is following me around and says, "Mommy come back." It wasn't the words so much as the tone. I have never heard such an amount of wonder in her voice before. It was almost as though she was witness to a miracle the way she said it. 

And perhaps in her world it was a miracle. Even though she has been our daughter for eight years, for the previous ten years, her experience taught her that people go and don't return. Ever. It takes a lot of returnings to reset that very deeply held expectation. This return felt a little more pivotal than most.