Emmet turned four today. We went to his birthday party but we sat on the other side of the fence about ten feet away for COVID safety purposes. Leah and Dave worked so hard to make it special. I think the boys had fun. Emmet looked sad to me quite a bit but he was also tired. It was extremely emotional for everyone with mixed emotions of sadness and great joy. Overall it was a success, I think, the best we could do with social distancing.
We greeted the boys through the window. They were very excited to see us. Leah said she has explained all of this as best she can to Emmet as they’ve had lots of friends do distance visits. After the window greeting and getting set up at our table out back in the side yard, i went into the bathroom and cried hard. It was so heart wrenching to not be able to hug them. Then I pulled it back together.
The kids fixed our plates, a wonderful meal of bbq brats, and put them on a table by the gate that we then picked up and ate on a table on our side of the fence. The boys played with little cars in the dirt then Leah put their homemade cardboard cars on and they had races. Henry was so cute as he’d run forward then slowly backed up every time. They were like turtles when they fell and had to have help getting up.
The boys seemed pretty unaffected by us not being able to touch them for the most part. Toward the end, Henry started naming us and putting little cars through the fence as gifts for us, sort of like consolation prizes. I was “Maw” yesterday. Emmet counted us several times and kept coming up with five (there were four of us).
As we were winding down to leave, Henry kept coming up to the fence with his little arms spread to give us his goodbye hugs. I had to walk away.
The end was hard. We said goodbye through the window. Emmet put the sweetest little expression on his face and mouthed the words “I love you” over and over. He looked so sad. I felt like my heart was being crushed. I miss him so so much.
Henry giggled when i went over to his window. His smile helped me get in the car and make our getaway, waving through at Emmet in the other window, his little face looking sad to see us go. It’s hard to say good bye regardless when we’ve had a good visit.
dianegclark 