Last night, I found out just how sensible Kylie actually is. I've always thought she handled separation really well, that maybe she's too young to feel the distance between Shane and her (he's been away from home a lot, you know, being in the army and all). He's almost at the end of his course and the recent weeks hasn't been particularly easy. Shane and I completely lacked proper communication because we hardly had the time to talk to each other or text each other much with our schedules being so different. Most times, Shane wouldn't have his phone with him either right up until bedtime. It's been bothering me a lot and I've been so busy with everything and having to manage my emotions, I didn't realise that this separation wasn't just affecting me. It also affected her but she never showed it.
Yesterday, I brought her to watch Inside Out and there were a couple of sad scenes that made her tear up in silence as usual. The movie had very strong family values though and this proved too much for her as she started bawling in the theatre and sobbing in my arms - it was a first, she's never cried like that over a show before. Tear up, yes. But not cry her heart out to this extent. I thought it was cute at first but then after the show, when we went to the wash room, her voice choked up with tears she said to me "i hope daddy's okay...we always spend time when he was home" then she started sobbing but wiped her tears away. It broke my heart so bad i almost cried myself. Then when we got out from the washroom, she saw this giant pikachu and ran right up to hug it. I thought nothing of it until I realised she was hugging it and crying, that she was in need of anhug badly so I pulled her in for a hug & she wept in my embrace while i told her that her daddy's coming home tomorrow.
It then dawned on me that she's always been relatively well-behaved whenever Shane's not home. She's never thrown tantrums despite the lack of attention from me sometimes because she understands that I'm really tired when I come home from work and she always does her own stuff and plays independently - occassionally asking me to join her. She brings homework back from school every week and almost every week, she takes it out and does it all on her own without me having to guide her. I thought about all the times she asks about him, counts down to his homecoming and even thinks of buying his favourite things out of random...all this while putting up a strong front and I never realised how much she'd missed him being around. On the way back home from the movie, she told me "we should buy something for daddy. Something he likes. If he likes cigarettes, we'll buy him cigarettes". It struck a chord in my heart when she said that because Kylie knows how much I hate it when he smokes but she followed up saying "we should take care, be loving to each other. Not scold" the simplet innocent idea of love - in giving in to Shane and his smoking habits not cause it's good but cause why scold him when we can love him with whatever time we have together instead?
It brings me to tears just typing this & to know that Shane's flying off to Brunei this Sunday for 3 weeks breaks my heart even more. Maybe she knows he's gonna be away for a longer time this round so she's missing him already or maybe it's the months of separation finally breaking her but I thank God for blessing us with such a sensible sweetheart. Sometimes I think she's a lot stronger than I am.
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