Gone and missed

My parents left yesterday. They're spending some time with my mom's parents way up north, then will fly out from there to Australia next week.

We had the duty of handing them over to the folk at the airport. My brothers said goodnight on Saturday night (leaving mom sobbing in the bathroom), but we had to do the goodbyes at the airport. We left in good time, and had about half an hour at the airport before they had to board.

My son intially didn't even want to go along - we had a rough night thanks to noisy neighbours, and he was very tired when he woke up. But he handled the goodbyes well, almost off-handedly - until my parents were out of sight. Then suddenly he wanted to see them again, and started to tear up when he realized they really were gone.

The rest of Sunday was spent with him being very emotional. He lay on his bed crying a lot, shaken by sobs, and I doled out many hugs and kisses. This goodbye has been the worst on him so far. He misses his granny, he misses his grandpa - who has been the only "dad" figure in his life, and whom he hadn't seen for years until this visit.

Late afternoon I took him out for a game of putt-putt to cheer him up. It worked briefly, but by bedtime he was sobbing again. I spent an hour being with him, rubbing his back and hugging him to sleep, trying to help him deal with his grandparent's leaving.

Now it's back to just the two of us. Back to our usual existance, but not quite. We've had a taste of having parents and grandparents around, and after an initial awkwardness it was going really well - and then they left. There's a hole in our souls. Yes, we can get back to doing all our stuff, living like we have for years now, all involved in our little individual lives. But we've tasted what it's like to have everyone - the entire extended family, all 12 of us - together. And we're going to miss that, a lot.

::update::
I've just been called to my son's school to take him home. He's very sick, and tired and heartsore, and wouldn't make it through the day. He's had a cough for a week now, and no home remedies are helping, so it's off to the doctor at 12. In the meantime he's home resting. Being sick and missing his grandparents is a pretty bad combination...

::prognosis::
Three hundred and sixty six bucks later, a very cute and classy young doctor has confirmed that my son is a walking infection. The germs are holding a par-TEE in his throat, ear, glands and lungs. So he's resting and well-dosed in pricey medication. Here's hoping he gets better!

As an aside, it's been such a long time since we saw a doctor, that our usual one ceased working at that particular office 2 years ago and we didn't know it!