Thursday, June 11, 2009

Saying goodbye is hard to do

I am getting ready to hit the road in the morning with some of my favorite girls to go to Living Proof Live in Pittsburgh. Amber, Jenny, Marisa and I are leaving tomorrow morning and will get home Saturday night after some good teaching, good conversations, good food and hopefully some shopping.

While I am SO looking forward to this little getaway, it doesn't come without some struggles. For the last several months, Haven has had a very hard time when I leave her here at home. She does fine if we leave her somewhere else, but the idea of her being here at home without me causes her great trauma. We've had several instances of a hysterical Haven crying in the driveway as I pull away. And then she just mopes and pouts for Cale the whole time I'm gone. In light of that, we've been doing our best to prepare Haven for mama's "long Bible study" trip and talking up what she and Cale will do while I'm gone (it's a very long list!). She's told me repeatedly throughout the week how sad she'll be when I'm gone and I've done my best to talk her through it and explain that it won't be for a long time at all.

Tonight as we were putting Haven to bed, she lost it. She was acting out and obviously very upset as she thought about me leaving in the morning. Cale and I were trying to console her and tell her that we can talk on the phone while I'm gone. She replied, "But I need to see her happy face!" Cale laughed and said we can look at her picture and see it. Haven wasn't satisfied. She said, "But I need to be able to look at her beautiful face and just talk to her all around the house like we always do." She breaks my heart! As sad as I am that she is so upset about me leaving, it fills my heart with joy that when she thinks of me she thinks of a happy, beautiful face! May that always be so!

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