My sad little boy...

So Jimmy had a huge crying jag today that broke his teacher's heart (and pretty much everyone elses.)  The little girl in Jimmy class has been gone for three days.  Since he can't communicate, we can only assume from his grief that today, day three, he has realized that she isn't coming back.  I got a message from the teacher fairly early in the morning that Jimmy had starting crying, saying her name repeatedly, and was inconsolable.  By the time I got the message, an hour had passed.  He had just calmed down and started working.  

When his therapist and I went to pick him from school, I was pleased to see him smiling.  Sadly, he got a little emotional on the walk home as well.  He gets sad when he leaves school, but he kept asking for her by name on the walk home.  We are going to have her over for the teacher's going away party, but just it is going to difficult for him to understand for quite awhile.  Jimmy and this little girl are the same age and they have been together since in the same class and on the same bus since they were 2.  Jimmy's almost 8 now.  I don't know how he perceives this, but my heart is breaking for him nonetheless.  I didn't appreciate how important she was to him until now.