Sayonara and bye-bye

today our good friends left.

they're moving to ithaca, new york and today they left.

they chose to spend their last night, here with us, and i felt honored.

i gave N, their 6 year old son, a photo album of pictures of all of our adventures: camping, renting vacation houses, going to the beach and on photo safaris...i told him i hid a note that i wrote to him behind one of the pictures and he had to find it. i told him he had to find it behind a picture of guy and i. he wanted to do this right away, although i had imagined he might only get into it while on the road. not so. he wanted it right away. we slowly went through every image looking...until we found it. he pulled it out and stared at it. N. can read and i know this, but he's staring so i told him he might have to get someone to read it for him, that my handwriting might not be so readable. he turned to me immediately and said, "will you please read it?"
oh my god. i took it, and said, Really? ME? uh, this won't be easy, i told him and our friends as my voice broke, But i will try.

i never focused so hard before on reading something intensely emotional so as not to bawl the entire time.

don't want to scare the boy.


(guy is depressed. these are his best friends since college. they are dear and now they are gone and so there is a sadness in the sunshiny house today.)