Soph

The night Sophia and I said goodbye, she was six years old; crawling into bed after a long day of whatever it was we did back then. I'd been staying with her family since my return from India a month previous and although I was not travelling back to the third world for over a month they were leaving for their annual summer jaunt to the Cape - a trip I'd made with them previously but couldn't make this time around due to my own pending travel plans.

Soph pulled her quilt up over her lap in the darkened room and with such sweet poignancy looked up at me with her big eyes and tiny voice and asked, "Are you still going back to India?"

I'd known Sophia since she was a fiesty two year old and had never minced words with her, preferring to treat her as an equal - a choice that favored her intelligence and showed her the respect she deserved as a sovereign little being. "Yes, Soph...I'm going back while you're in Cape Cod, so I guess this is the last night we will be together for a while but I will miss you with all my heart."

"I won't see you again..."
Her words trailed off as she blinked back tears and lifted her arms for her good-night hug - the end of an era. I did the only thing I could do, and simply sat with that most-favored little girl just listening to her breathe, both of us trying not to cry.

I went back into her room at least three times that night, to watch her sleep, to wrench my heart over three+ years of loving her like a little sister.

The pictures of her I carried here with me keep her perpetually at five years old, a sunny summer girl sitting in the grass, looking expectantly at the photographer, allowing them to capture her in all her tiny beauty.
Since then, I've received emailed photos of the little darling and cannot immediately reconcile the tiny thing I used to carry around and play Chutes and Ladders with. She's grown so much since I've been gone.

Sometimes I worry she will forget me but even still she asks the same reassuring question, "When are you coming home?"