A year and a half ago we spent two weeks away from both of our children, but I think maybe this past week was harder for them, when Dominic and Ella spent four days apart from each other — Ella with us and many of our friends and their kids in the UP, Dominic down south with one pair of grandparents and then the other.
It was great fun to take Ella up to see the Cabins for the first time. Her initial bout of shyness didn’t last that long, though I could see her flitting back and forth between interacting with the other kids and then retreating to play by herself when it got a little much for her. But there she was, playing games and riding in rowboats and running around outside and doing all the things that we imagined the kids we’d have someday would do up there when we idly talked about it a dozen years ago. But not a day went by when she didn’t mention her brother, and how she missed him. When we were getting ready to leave she explained to me that it was a happy-and-sad time, because she was sad to be leaving the Cabins but happy that she would see her brother again soon.
Though he had a grand time first with one set of grandparents and then the other, Dominic seems to have had the harder go of it. Though more outgoing than his sister he’s of an age where maintaining routine matters a little more. I’m writing this from a hotel room halfway home to Alexandria, where he suffered a late-night meltdown because we had yogurt drink instead of milk for him to drink before he fell asleep. And though it was “mommy” and “daddy” that he cried for sometimes when we were gone, I think of Ella had been there he probably wouldn’t have noticed so much.
At any rate their reunion was touching. Ella had picked out a balloon to present to him when we arrived, and thrust it into his hands as soon as they met. He seemed to understand the gesture and didn’t let go of the balloon once through all the assorted hugs and kisses that followed. That night they slept on adjoining mattresses, each on the side of their mattress closest to the other. Ella’s limbs were splayed but one hand rested assuredly on Dominic’s arm.