Momentary Friendships

Tonight Sebastian made a friend, and lost her. And for some reason that makes me sad.

We were out at a Jo-Ann Fabrics that's going to be closing and moving soon. The store was more than half empty, with a large empty section blocked off.

The only other child in the store was a little girl there, about the same size as Sebastian. A smart little girl, with glasses; she had just turned six. Her name was Chase.

She and Sebastian played together, the way that children do. They had close to an hour to run around, and make a "secret hiding place", and pretend that a shelf was a computer; they told each other about their computers at home. And about the costumes they'd wear at Halloween.

And then they started picking up all the little odds and ends that you can find around a store that's getting ready to close, and putting them in their secret hiding place.

When the time came for us to go, we told Sebastian to say goodbye. "Bye", he said abruptly and quietly, suddenly getting shy again. Chase was obviously sad. She'd asked Sebastian for his phone number, but neither we nor her mother were ready to allow that.

So they had a few more minutes of playing together, and then they said goodbye again out at the cars; by a coincidence, we'd parked right next to theirs.

It makes me sad that Sebastian made a friend and lost her all in the same hour. I suppose the odds are that they'll never meet each other again.

Momentary Friendships

Tonight Sebastian made a friend, and lost her. And for some reason that makes me sad.

We were out at a Jo-Ann Fabrics that's going to be closing and moving soon. The store was more than half empty, with a large empty section blocked off.

The only other child in the store was a little girl there, about the same size as Sebastian. A smart little girl, with glasses; she had just turned six. Her name was Chase.

She and Sebastian played together, the way that children do. They had close to an hour to run around, and make a "secret hiding place", and pretend that a shelf was a computer; they told each other about their computers at home. And about the costumes they'd wear at Halloween.

And then they started picking up all the little odds and ends that you can find around a store that's getting ready to close, and putting them in their secret hiding place.

When the time came for us to go, we told Sebastian to say goodbye. "Bye", he said abruptly and quietly, suddenly getting shy again. Chase was obviously sad. She'd asked Sebastian for his phone number, but neither we nor her mother were ready to allow that.

So they had a few more minutes of playing together, and then they said goodbye again out at the cars; by a coincidence, we'd parked right next to theirs.

It makes me sad that Sebastian made a friend and lost her all in the same hour. I suppose the odds are that they'll never meet each other again.