Last Day, Friday, Cry-day

Today was rather hard... I woke up with a feeling of dread, knowing that today would be filled with a lot of goodbyes that I didn't want to happen. 

It has been a marvelous, tough, fulfilling semester. The first two months I thought these kids were little punks that I'd never come to love, and then the last two months, something changed and I realized that they have the biggest hearts. If I was suddenly given the opportunity to stay here for another four months, I would. 

So we had our final performance today. The kids were so darn cute!! They all said their lines and sang the songs WITH the actions; usually they moan and groan and sit down in protest. But today was perfect. Somehow they missed the memo to dress up like a Christmas character, so we had kids show up like butterflies, fairies, pirates, cowboys, and even Zoro. I thought it was hilarious! Our play didn't make much sense anyways, so that just added to the humor of it all. 

I was giving my little man Mantvydas piggy back rides around the room and he steered me to his mom and said to her, "This is Lindsay". She smiled and said "He wants to keep you!". If only. When it was time to say goodbye, Mantvydas was frantically trying to get my number and give me his and kept asking if we were going to visit him tomorrow.. I was doing pretty good holding back tears until we found Khalil in the closet room, crying. It was all over for me after that. 

Mante was so funny, she climbed onto my lap, stroked my cheek, and said, "Oh baby, don't cry...". It was a mix of giggles and tears. 

Little Evita was probably my hardest goodbye. She started with rubbing her eyes a lot and trying to laugh it off, and then she kept unzipping my coat and pulling my gloves off. Eventually she turned to pleading as we both cried and hugged. My heart is breaking over and over again thinking about it! Urte kept begging us all, "Please don't go back to America!". I will miss these kids like nothing else. 

Even though today was plain awful, I'd do it all again so I could know these kids. Sadly, one of my favorites, Kornelijus, didn't show up today, so I didn't get to say goodbye, but his last day he gave an extra long hug.. So maybe he knew but it may have been best that I didn't. 

Little Urte, Julija, and Evita

Dmitrijos and Julija (siblings)

Mantvydas!!! (My little man) 

Sweet Paulina

Karina and Smilte

"Give me some love"

The first time Khalil let me take a picture of him.

Ainus! 

Ainus is so darn cute. He has so much energy! But once in a while I'd get lucky and get a hug from him. Today I hugged him and then he grabbed my hand and pulled me with him to his dad. And smiled as if to say, "Ready to go!". It melted my heart. 

Kornelijus

Such a sweet kid!!

Jonas!

 Funny story about Jonas, yesterday he was sitting on a desk in opening, so I grabbed his hand and slowly pulled him off, but he didn't catch himself and fell straight to the floor.... And then started bawling. I felt so bad!!! He kept calling me "Bad teacher", but by the end of the day he had forgiven me (I hope).

Sneaky selfie with Aristeja

I'm packing my laptop, so this will be my last post until I get home. I wish I could put into words all that I'm feeling, but it's a bit difficult to convey all my love and sadness but happiness for these past four months. #BLESSED 

I guess today more than ever I'm grateful that I have a memory that works rather well. And that I have a habit of keeping a journal so I can look back on this. Thanks for following along!