Rock

My daughter is grieving.   This is going to sound crazy, but it’s true, she’s mourning the loss of a rock.  We were in a national park shortly before leaving Maui and my daughter found a rock she wanted to keep.   You can’t take rocks from national parks (and this was wasn’t a little pebble).

She wailed and cried when we had to throw it back into the river.   She wanted to kiss it.   She asked if we could take a picture of it.   She wants to recreate the shape of the rock in clay when we get home.   This may sound silly, but it isn’t to her.   She can’t see anything and has different ways of making things memorable to her.   One of those ways is by keeping a souvenir she can touch and remember the time through.

She knows the rock isn’t coming back.   She knows there is no way to get the rock so she’s not tautruming to try and get anything from us, she’s just sad.   She burst out tears for a while today on the long flight home.   She was upset several other times and tonight she couldn’t get to sleep because she said she couldn’t stop thinking about ‘rock’. We’re trying to comfort her the best we can.

The Big Boy Update:  My son slept very little on the overnight flight back, but when we told him he had to go to sleep he listened and was asleep in three minutes.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter slept from before we boarded the plane last night, most of the overnight flight and most of the second flight home.   Of all of us, she’s the most rested.