Last day (Goodbye Part 1)

Today I spent the afternoon with Phoenix and Jude. We went out for lunch and had a great time... we laughed a lot. Then we went shopping at the mall. I hate shopping... hate it! BUT today, I rather enjoyed it. I drove them both to their respective homes and I started to get sad. Phoenix was first and we hugged and we told each other how much we loved one another and she went inside. I got in the car and started to back out but just couldn't do it. I stopped and got out of the car and much to my surprise, Phoenix was running towards me. We hugged again, longer and cried our eyes out. It was so very, very hard. On the one hand I'm so excited for my new life, and on the other, am torn apart about leaving my kids behind. A car was waiting to park and we were in the way. It was time to let go and say goodbye, for real this time. Then, I drove Jude to his new home, at his grandparents'. Well, if I wasn't blubbering enough with Phoenix, which I was, the tears continued to flow with Jude. He assured me that everything would be okay and not to worry. I was in pieces. Anyway, I left, still crying. I could have used windshield wipers on my eyeballs! I drove back to Steph's, our neighbour, where we're staying, and as I walked in, she asked me how I was doing, knowing I had just said goodbye to the kids. I could barely look at her. She knew. She knew just by looking at me that I was having a hard time. She was so kind. An hour or so later, Kevin came back from having dinner with his sister, Kaz. We decided to walk around the block to say our goodbyes to several of our neighbours. It has been a day and evening of goodbyes and I'm now officially emotionally drained. We got back to Steph's and went downstairs to sort out our suitcases. We weighed each case and a few were over the 50 lbs allowance, so we had to rejig some items. Finally, they were all under 50 lbs... just. Then I phoned my former mother-in-law to say goodbye, as she was out when I dropped Jude off. She had a piece of mail for us and wanted to come down and give it to us and say goodbye in person. While she was with us, she received a call from her husband telling her that Jude had left (it was nearly 10:30 pm by this time) and told him that he was cycling down to say goodbye to his parents one last time. So, Kevin and I said our goodbyes to my former mother-in-law and we waited for Jude. He arrived on his bike about 20 minutes later. I can't tell you how much it meant to us that he would ride his bike all that way (approx 20 km) just for one more squeeze. After some time chatting, I put Jude's bike in the back of the rented van and drove him back to his grandparents. It was the least I could do since it was so late. Then, when I got home we went to bed at 12:30 am. We were completed and utterly shattered.