August had a hard day.

She thinks I will leave her and never return. I disappear behind walls, exit her world through a door, duck behind counters...I am gone. Her eyes fill with tears and her cries break my heart. If she cannot see me, I no longer exist and she misses me, her source of food and warmth. Already her Papi has been gone, off to work in another city. He is waiting for us to join him in a week.  All she has left is me and she is keeping a close eye on Mommy.  

She was like this over the summer when her Papi went off to work for  ten hours a day for the first time in her life. To think he is afraid she will forget him... Not likely. The girl misses her Papi, her family is incomplete and it adds to the anxiety babies begin to feel between six and nine months. Tomorrow we see him for the first time in two weeks and I am looking forward to it. August doesn't expect it. None of us is use to this sort of disunion. We don't like it very much.  

It's been so long, lifetimes ago, since I experienced the achy feeling of separation. It was when Abuelita left to return to Mexico after visiting for several weeks. We spent every moment of the day together. I never anticipated her departure. There was only the present. When we'd visit Mexico, I would get that same painful heartache, missing my Grandmother in the U.S. I would not be seeing her for several weeks. There were tears for several hours followed by small outbursts for a few days.  

The tears stemmed from deep in my heart and were triggered by thoughts of their hugs and warmth, sweet things they would tell me or of losing them forever. I don't remember when that sort of suffering stopped and became missing them without tears and extreme heartache. I can't believe I forgot how something so distressing once felt. It is all coming back to me now. How it smarts.