There's This Boy...

My son has my heart. He has since he came into this world. This has been a trying week with D. My heart is feeling heavy and raw. 

He made some bad choices over the last week that gave him some learning experiences that he wasn't too comfortable with. Having to return a toy to his best friend after taking it from his home without asking made him sad and remorseful, feelings that are necessary to really learn the lesson. I didn't realize how much my heart would hurt for him. I was angry and disappointed in his choice to take from his friend, as well as with a bad decision in school. I knew that he knew better than what he was doing and it felt like a personal failure to watch him choose wrong. I know that, logically, I have to separate myself and teach, but this is extremely hard. Harder than I ever thought it would be. 

Today, my heart hurt for a different reason. Today is Walking Wednesday. It's a program that D's school runs where the kids gather at a location and walk to school all together to promote healthy living. We try to get there as often as we can and, when we do, D walks with his friend that he has known from different activities through the years. Today, his friend chose to walk with her classmate that was there. As he stood there holding her hand, so excited, she turned to him and very nicely asked if he could walk behind her because her classmate really wanted to be her walking buddy. He smiled, so brave, and agreed. I tried to keep his spirits up and tell him how nice that was of him. I simultaneously watched as his spirit broke and he began to well up with tears. I pointed out a few of his other friends who were there and watched as he desperately searched for someone to pair with. He put on his smile and asked each one of them if they wanted to walk with him. Most of them politely let him know that they already had a partner, some completely ignored him. He quickly walked back over to me and sobbed into my sweatshirt. I wanted to sit down right there in that parking lot and sob with him, for my heart was shattering at that moment. I wanted to put him back in the car and just drive him the quarter mile to the school. I wanted to fix it and shield him from the hurt that he was experiencing. 

Instead, we stayed. We walked to school, me as his partner, him trying to stop the tears before he saw all his classmates. It broke my heart to see my son, my courageous, confident, bossy little man start to crumble a little bit. I hope and pray that I am strong enough to make him strong enough that life doesn't make him crumble. He is such an amazing kid and he deserves all the good this life has to offer and less of the bad. 

Bad choices, I can handle. The rest of it . . .  I am struggling.