A hug from a 7 year old

I was making breakfast for Peter and Lauren. Peter wanted oatmeal, two pieces of toast (one with jelly and one with butter) and a waffle with butter and syrup. Lauren wanted an omelet with cheese and pancakes. It was their day off from school so I thought...eh...why not...they always eat quick breakfast, why not indulge on your day off? I would.

Plus, it was one of those days. One of those Maura days where the constriction in my chest gets tighter and tighter until I can cry it out (which usually take a good hour of relentless sobbing)--not something I could release while I'm supposed to be babysitting kids and pretending being an adult is the greatest thing in the world.

But everytime I look at them, I know its weird, but I see Maura. Peter's rambunctiousness and big blue eyes remind me of Maura. And the fact that he met Maura and Maura just adored him. Lauren too. Her sweet, gentle ways are also very Maura. And the way those two play together...they both will exclaim to anyone who asks that they are best friends. I mean, they fight but they'd rather spend the day together playing dress up than go to the park. It makes me miss when I was a child and Maura and I played dress up together with our baby blankets over our heads as scarves. Or still, the ever-haunting echo of her little 4-yr. old voice in my ears calling out my name, "Lydia!" and I see her blonde curls bobbing as she runs towards me. Her headband and ponytail she would insist on wearing everyday. And then she changed to just the headband. Her little hands. Seeing Peter and Lauren just reminds me of how much sometimes I just wish I could climb back through time and be in that place with my sisters again. Young, free and completely innocent, trying to catch tadpoles in the pond or pretending to go on journeys through the jungle in the house. Or when Danielle would put make up on me and Maura and then take "glamour shots" of us in our bathing suits (usually swimteam bathing suits but still)

I see these kids and I wish to God so badly that I could be there again. With my sisters. Playing. Fighting. Annoying. Giggling. Tickling. But home. In our house. On our swingset. Not worried about anything but what will we play next.

And looking back, I can wish all I want that I should have relished my childhood because now it is only--and can only be--a distant memory.

And here they are in front of me.

I had a hard conversation with my mom. I got off the phone.

I fixed the waffle and burnt the omelet a little. But I had warned her I was not the best chef.

I started to feel the tightness in my chest start to creep into my throat, up the back of my neck and into my nose.

Not here. I told myself. NOT here. NOT now. I gripped the edge of the oven and squeezed as hard as I could to keep it together because I could hear their little feet pounding into the kitchen as if on cue. How do they know when breakfast is ready and their babysitter is falling apart?

I put a smile on my face and forced the tears to stay welled up in my eyes and my mouth and jaw were squeezed tense so no emotion could betray me. We got through 30 minutes like that--they ate and talked and I let them talk as much as they want. Peter went on and on about how when he was an adult he would make all his own decisions and still live with mom and dad and never get married because he didn't want to have to live away from home. Maura used to say the exact same thing. I never did. Soon, breakfast was eaten and Peter was grabbing onto me, pulling my sleeves to go play "egyptians." Lauren came over, gently took his grip off of my arm and told him I had to clean up and to go ahead and go get dressed as a Egypt and she would get dressed as Queen HutPut (or whoever the heck it is--a female pharaoh apparently--that girl knows more about Egypt than any Egyptian I know). When Peter raced to his room, Lauren gently put her skinny little arms around me.

And she smiled and she hugged me for I don't know, about 5 minutes. Long enough for Peter to change into his Egyptian costume (his underpants) and play for a bit and then realize no one had joined him yet.

When Peter came to get her, she gave me a final squeeze. I didn't squeeze her quite so hard, her body is very small and frail, and yet her hug is strong, but still, I don't want to break her. I didn't want to let go. I wanted to hug her forever and cry and cry and cry. But she went back to dress up as the Queen she is and I cleared the breakfast dishes and sat down and wept.

And when I had my cry, I went back into their room where the Egyptian palace had been set up and announced I was Cleopatra. And we played Egyptians for about another hour and a half and then I went home.

She's 7, you know? She'll be 8 in January. But she's really incredible. She's really wonderful. She sees things and knows things not a lot of kids her age pay attention to, I think. She is having a year like I did in 5th grade.

I miss my sister. I miss her with every fiber of my being even the broken shards of glass in my heart must feel the pain.

Unexpected and Unannounced my old enemy, Grief, has shown up again. And I don't have any 7 year olds today to ease the pain if just for a moment. I just have my computer, my pictures and a dirty apartment. Well. No time like the present to clean up.