Nora Evelyn

On Saturday, at dinner, Nora’s Uncle Eric got her a green helium balloon*. As is always the case with helium balloons, Nora treasured it mightily. She also treasured the one given to her cousin, Kacie, but failed to claim that one. She proudly carried hers to the car, played with it (and sang into it) most of the way home and was proudly carrying it to the house when she let go of the ribbon and learned a very, very hard lesson about life. Sometimes loss is permanent. Daddy can’t fly 250 feet in the air over Argo Pond to retrieve your balloon no matter how vehemently you point, how mournfully you call out “balloon! balloon!” or how cutely you make your “I don’t get it!” hand gesture. For a while you could see the balloon drifting away into the sky from our dining room window so she stood perfectly still and watched it fly away until she couldn’t see it anymore.

Now every walk from the car means Nora must take a moment to point off into the western sky, squint up into our faces and say, simply, “balloon.” It’s not a question. It’s not a cry. It’s just a sad declaration of her loss and a remembrance of things past.

Probably she’ll let go of the next one too.

* the balloon was green, not the helium.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 8:05 pm and is filed under family & friends, firsts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.