A Fond Farewell

i came home from work the other night to find the kids a-twitter with excitement over their new discovery: a robin's egg. the egg had fallen from a nest somewhere, but other than a tiny crack, was fully intact. the kids fashioned a new cozy nest out of grass and twigs, brought their new little blue friend inside, and promptly made him a member of our family.

my husband and i figured there would be no harm in letting "eggie" hang out for a bit. and with the kids besotted, what else could we really say? so, there eggie stayed...on our dining room table. he was greeted each day with a cheery "good morning!" from both kids. my daughter would come home from school every afternoon and run right up to eggie, stroking him gently and whispering to him.

then one day. it happened. i was in the next room when all of the sudden i heard a cry. a pained, panicked, anguished cry. i ran in to find...eggie. in pieces. first thought? disease. luckily eggie broke on a placemat so just ran that over to the sink. as my daughter sobbed and screamed "he's gone! he's gone!" i scrubbed her hands. then we sat down. at that point, i noticed the 4-year-old had tears streaming down his face. "oh eggie! poor eggie!" he sobbed. i held the two of them on my lap, both inconsolable.

but it didn't end there. a few seconds later, i felt a tug on my leg. the baby had toddled over. seeing how upset his siblings were, he began to cry in support. and so it went for about 10 minutes. tears and sobs punctuated with cries of "eggie! he's gone! eggie's gone!"

finally, when the volume started to die down, i could talk. "eggie was pretty awesome wasn't he? i'm going to miss him too." and because i write when i'm sad (and happy and mad and tired and frustrated and excited), i said, "why don't we write and draw some pictures to show eggie how much we're going to miss him?" tears stopped. markers came out. and here's what we got.

goodbye dear eggie. you were loved. and we'll miss you.