charlie and the moon.

In the summer of 2008, I was a counselor in Cabin 1, the youngest girls cabin. We had 6-9 year olds, and the occasional 5 year old too. Needless to say, homesickness was a daily occurrence.

One week, I had a camper named Charlie, and she earned her spot on my "top 5" list for worst cases of homesickness that summer. She was 7, and she semi-resembled Mara Wilson, somewhere between "Matilda" and "A Simple Wish."

She had a great time at camp, but each day after activities she'd start to miss home. To help her with her homesickness, Mom had sent her to camp with a huge photo album with pictures of every family member and pet she'd ever had. Unfortunately, half of the pets in the book were "no longer with us," if you know what I mean, and seeing pictures of her family only made her miss them more, so the photo album served the purpose of increasing her sadness, instead of relieving it.

Before she left home, she had made a promise with her mom that they would each find the moon each night before bedtime and say goodnight. I suppose since they couldn't actually say good night to each other, she saw this as the next best thing. Every night, we had to go outside before bedtime so she could say goodnight to the moon.