Emotional Break

                Any given moment I am with the kids I am purely filled with emotion. It doesn’t matter what I am doing or how I am feeling they can set the mood in a heartbeat. Today, Srey Noun was sitting over near her cubby and wasn’t smiling. As I walked over my heart just sank as I saw a tear fall from her face. There is nothing more heartbreaking than someone crying, but for someone who is always smiling and laughing and running around having good time, it was a miserable sight. The fact that we speak different languages, communication is extremely challenging; therefore I could not find out what was wrong and why she was crying. After a few minutes of sitting with her and trying to comfort her in English, which I’m sure she didn’t understand, she shed another tear. At that point I was holding myself back from bursting out into tears. I said “Srey Noun, no cry” and gestured crying on her face, “You cry, I cry” and then on mine. After I said that, she gradually cheered up and restrained from crying. If she had not, I might not have been able to hold back my tears any longer. In merely a few minutes, Srey Neat had the same sullen look on her face. I picked her up and put her in my arms and she started the same thing and shed a tear. At that point my emotion dam couldn’t hold any longer and I had to give her a hug to hide my tears. Not just their sadness had me crying, but the fact I didn’t know what was wrong or how to help. Just the look on their faces changed me from smiling to crying. They are able to switch my emotions in such a dramatic way; either from cheerful to sunk, or from feeling blue to feeling astounding, the mere sight of their face can do the trick. Today, we had a nice relaxing day and after lunch, our tiredness caught up to us and the majority of us laid on the stage for a nap. Heang and I finally decided to join everyone and laid down ourselves; I laid straight and he put his head on my stomach. As he got comfortable, he grabbed my hand in his and put his other hand on the other side of mine. The second he did, my whole body filled with love and joy. I could have laid there all day and all night if I could. Just being there and having him fall asleep and hold my hand had me smiling and thinking about how much I loved the kids and how it was going to kill me to have to leave them. Even then, his love could push away all the bad thoughts and we were able to simply enjoy each other’s company in that moment.