Overnight Joycee

For the past three nights, Joyce has been staying the night at our place because her children are staying at her mother’s place and her husband is out of station, on a long distance driving assignment. It has been really nice to have her here around the clock and Kaia has been full of joy. For her, not having to deal with the commute time and the heat of her inland home makes it a positive as well. I know that I have said it a number of times before, but we are really going to miss her and I don’t know what Kaia is going to do without her. For the past week he has been asking where she is when she’s out or not around and earlier this week, whenever he’d hear the building’s elevator he’d run to the door, open it, and wait for her to come up. Of course, most of the time it wasn’t her, but it was clear that he knew that she/we would be leaving each other soon. It just really breaks my heart to see it all coming down to the end.

Kaia has actually really been struggling with the move for the past week. Earlier, when we would ask him if he was excited about moving back to the US, he would give and emphatic, “YES!”, but now this is certainly not the case. Now he responds with a clear, “I want to stay here. This is my home. I don’t want to go to the US. I want to stay in India.” Yesterday, when a painter came to do measurements for a job he’ll do once we vacate the apartment, Kaia got really upset when the painter came into my office. He said, “Don’t go into papa’s office! This is Kaia’s house, you should go away! Don’t take away Kaia’s things, this is Kaia’s house!” I don’t know how the next two days are going to be, but I suspect a lot of tears are going to be shed and heavy hearts taken away…

Why I Love this Time: The beginning of a time to reflect upon how this experience has transformed all of us, indiapapa, kaia and indiamama