My girls

Three and half years ago, I moved to Boston. 

I knew one person - my dear roommate Sarah. 

Two days later, I went to grad school orientation. 

One day after that, I met these two blonde beauties. 

At the time, they were 4 and 7-months-old. 

In the first five minutes of knowing C - she yanked my hair out of the braid and started playing. Their mom, Big C I'll call her, worried that C was driving me nuts. 

As C bounced around the room, showing me her somersaults from gymnastics class and finishing the first of hundreds of "braids" in my hair, I met little T. She came barreling into the playroom on all fours at full speed. She never wanted to miss a thing and couldn't believe nobody woke her up earlier.

I fell in love. 

It was supposed to be a one-time job. Possibly something occasional. I am so, so thankful it wasn't.

Three years later, these sweet girls walked down the aisle right in front of me at my wedding. 

Last week, they moved. Not down the street, not to the next state, but across the Atlantic. 

I don't know Boston without them. 

I squeezed them as hard as I could when I left last week. 

I squeezed their mom almost harder. 

I promised to skype, I promised to call, I promised to be there for them - forever.

And then I cried like a baby the whole way home.