This is a difficult post to write.  One evening, as I came home from work, I saw that E was home, so I stopped in to say hello.  It seems she’s back for the summer, maybe for longer – we’ll see, I guess.  Right now, though, her family doesn’t want her to see me.

This has happened lots of times before, so I’m pretty used to it.  But this is the first time she’s been old enough to be the one to say “Stay away – I just want time with my family so we can start over again, and I don’t need you around.”  I have to respect those boundaries, but it breaks my heart.  And it scares me a little, because I’ve never known her family to get through a holiday season without serious problems.  That’s the whole reason she went to live somewhere else.  On the other hand, at least she trusts me enough to be honest.   And things do change, and people grow.  I don’t know what will happen.

I don’t know what will happen, or when I’ll see her again.  But she was glad to see me, that one day this summer.  And she’s healthy and cheerful and she passed all her classes, and she’s walking forward in her life with love around her and hope in her hands.

She knows my number.