That time I made my three year old cousin cry

My three year old cousin Devorah has been having a rough time. She has been sick a lot, and she recently spent a few days in the hospital. For obvious reasons she has been really attached to her mother. She also likes me a lot except for today when I made her cry. Devorah was clearly getting tired and reaching meltdown stage, but in the meantime she was happily sitting next to me at the table eating some dinner. Somehow my friend Pesha came up in conversation, the mother of Raphi-- my bestest friend in the world. Raphi is about six months older than Devorah, and I always thought they'd make a cute pair. So I said, "Soon I'll introduce Raphi to Devorah so they can get married!" (or something of the sort). Probably at any time of day Devorah would have giggled and said "that's silly!" but this time she burst into tears and screamed "I don't want to leave Mommy! Mommy, mommy I can't leave you! I never want to leave you!" Devorah was completely distraught and couldn't be calmed down. I clarified that Raphi was just a nice friend I had for her to play with, but she wasn't buying it. Needless to say, it was pretty hysterical, and I had a hard time controlling my laughter (which wouldn't have helped the situation). I can think of so many situations in the future when I will want to remind Devorah of this event. In the meantime, she needs some reassurance that she will have many more years with her mommy and daddy. As for my relationship with Devorah, maybe a half hour later I was sitting on her bed with her discussing her possibly taking an airplane to visit me one day. I think she'll get over this... just don't mention marriage to her for awhile.