Enough to break my heart

Saturday, 10:04 am

Aug

23

2008

The lad departed for school this morning. His Dad came to pick him up with a vehicle large enough to haul all his stuff and even at that, it was a tight fit. My house still looks as though the lad might walk back through the door at any minute—a pair of shoes here, a pair over there, the discarded backpack, a few piles of tee shirts. It’ll take me a few days to put things back in apple pie order. And while I thought I might feel pretty sad when he left, I’m surprisingly okay. What I am, however, is very concerned about his girlfriend.

She has been here a lot this past week and, to tell you the truth, it was sort of like watching someone prepare for the gallows. She desperately tried to keep a stiff upper lip, but it kept wobbling. Yesterday, she finally dissolved and sobbed her heart out. I felt so, so, so sorry for her. The more the lad tried to comfort her, the harder she cried. The lad wasn’t exactly the model of stoicism, either. He was rattled right to the core.

She took him to work last evening and they said their final goodbyes. It was a very tough evening for both of them.

When he came home, he wanted to talk about it. I asked if he’d left her with anything of his...you know, like maybe a tee shirt or something. No, he hadn’t, but he recalled how she’d put on one of his sweatshirts the other evening and told him how much she liked it because it smelled like him. I said, “Well, maybe you could pick out one of your tee shirts, sleep in it, and then attach a note to it. I can have her come and get it or drop it off at her house. I think she’d really like having that little bit of you to hold until Christmas.”

Well, he jumped on that idea, but couldn’t decide which tee shirt. I suggested one of his school tee shirts. I have one and they’re really thick cotton and really comfortable. I’m pretty sure she’d like it. He grabbed one out of the fresh laundry pile and pulled it on. It seemed to make him feel better, too.

So, he’s gone now, but he left her his tee shirt with a sweet note pinned to it. He said he’d call her this evening, so I expect she might pop over in the next 24 hours. I hope to see her doing a little better than she was doing yesterday.

Her Mom stopped by two days ago while I was puttering around outside. First time that we’ve officially met. Interesting. She’s a warm and vibrant woman...I liked her immediately. She said she’d been meaning to stop by...she wanted to finally meet the lad’s Mom. We talked about the kids and both noted that something definitely changed this summer. They were kind of casual about things in the last year or so, owing to the distance between them during the school year (she’s in Scotland and he’s in PA). I told her that I’d noted the change about mid-way through summer. Whenever Becca came over, the lad’s face lit up like a 200 watt bulb. Same thing whenever they talked on the phone. Becca’s mom said she’d seen the same thing. This has been a hard week. Breaks her heart to see her daughter hurt so much and I told her it wasn’t much better on this end. We laughed a bit, observing that it’s bad enough missing them when they leave, but this is a whole new development and it’s really hard to feel their pain on top of it.

Boy, they don’t tell you about these things in the Parent’s Manual.