My 11-year-old daughter looks like she just lost her best friend. Probably because in a way, she has.
Image: Steven Depolo via Flickr
Her BFF from school is still very much alive, and she still wants to be my daughter's friend. Thank goodness on both counts.
But she's leaving to go to a different school. She'll still live nearby, but Anna won't see her every day.
"Can you believe what so-and-so did?" will give way to, "You'll never believe what so-and-so did!" The minutiae of middle school will need to be merged via text and chat and Facetime.
I've been all the way around on the tween Ferris wheel once already with my now-teenage daughter, so I know this much is true: How a middle-school girl feels good about her closest friendships is how she feels about life in general.
I'll never forget the look on Anna's face when she walked in the house the day she learned about her school friend's departure. I wish I could. But then I'm glad I can't, because what kind of mom wants the ease of forgetting her child's pain while that child is still in that pain?
I held Anna on my lap while she cried, and she told me, "Please don't tell me everything will be okay, because it won't." I couldn't argue with her.
I'm feeling my way along here, figuring out what will help Anna through this season of loss and change. Here's what I'm telling myself a lot these days ...
Let her feel what she feels.
Our American society favors a short list of emotions: happy, cheerful, optimistic, and fine. People who are sad or discouraged or upset are encouraged to get over it ... now.
On top of this, as moms, we yearn to heal what is sick, mend what is broken, and right what is wrong. When our children are hurting, we want to ease their pain immediately if not sooner.
But I know I have to let Anna walk through, not around, what Ecclesiastes 3:4 calls "a time to weep and a time to laugh."
I told her we would be patient while she processed the new reality she was facing without her friend as she had enjoyed her in the past. And Anna herself warned us not to brush off her sadness by telling her she had other friends.
She helped us see that friendship is not like a scale: as long as the balance of friends stays the same, all is well. Rather, Anna's close female relationships form a puzzle: incomplete when one piece is taken out.
In addition to striking "everything will be okay" from our stock-phrase vocabulary, we're also learning not to say "cheer up!" or "what's wrong?" When in doubt, we do what everyone knows you're supposed to do to comfort someone who has lost someone they love: hug them and say "I'm sorry."
At the right time, direct her mind sometimes away from The Thing toward Something Else.
I'm not trying to rush Anna past the reality of what she's losing. If I do, I'm dishonoring her feelings and the friend she's saying a kind of goodbye to. Mentally processing the situation is crucial for eventual acceptance and healing.
But there comes a point when continually stirring The Thing That's Bothering You around and around in your head serves no purpose and accomplishes no good.
I gave Anna an assignment: Come up with Something Else to redirect her brain toward when it had spent enough time on The Thing. Something Else could be a Bible verse, a prayer, a list of what she's looking forward to this summer, the lyrics to a favorite song, or a review of the available flavors at our favorite ice cream shop. Whatever -- as long as it gave her mind somewhere safe and comforting to land.
Check in ... but allow her some space.
A couple of days into our journey, I told my daughter I thought we needed a plan and a code. I could not spend the next several days or weeks or (heaven forbid) months constantly asking her, "Are you okay? What's the matter?" I knew she wasn't okay, and I knew what the matter was. But neither did I want to ignore her if she needed to talk again or if something else had come up.
We agree on two guideposts: 1) if something else was wrong or if Anna wanted to talk further about The Thing we already knew was wrong, she would tell me so I wouldn't have to guess what the look on her face meant; and 2) if I wanted to confirm that the look on her face was because of what I already knew was wrong, I could mouth or whisper "F.S.?"-- for "Friend Situation"-- just to confirm and acknowledge.
Give her good medicine.
The day Anna learned about her school friend's departure, she was scheduled to help out at an end-of-year school function. I took her to it, hoping the activity would distract her from thinking, but she was bored and had plenty of time to think. On the way home, her face was heavy with sorrow, and I was scrambling to figure out what I could do to help her.
A few minutes after we walked in the door, my older daughter, Lydia, called from our family room, "Anna! Come out here! I have to show you something." Anna went to her sister (grudgingly), and within a couple minutes, I heard both of them howling with laughter.
Lydia had dug up an old camera she hadn't used since her pre-iPod days and hooked it up to her laptop to play a slide show. While she and Anna watched old "modeling" videos they'd made and clicked through pictures of their elementary-aged selves, they laughed .. .and laughed ... and laughed. From the other room, I could hardly reconcile the sound of Anna's delight with the despairing look I'd seen on her face minutes before.
At the computer, listening, I typed a Facebook post thanking Lydia for her big-sister gift. She said to me later, "Did you hear how I had Anna laughing? I knew those pictures would do it," and I told her, "I just posted about it."
I loved how Lydia's idea beautifully proved the wisdom of Proverbs 17:22 ~ "A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Give her a glimpse of the future.
Soon after The Day, the mom of Anna's school friend emailed me asking if we could schedule some time for our girls to spend together. She said she wanted to give her daughter "something to look forward to in the near future." Smart mama.
We made the date, and I promised Anna there'd be more to come: weekly dinners or donuts before school. Sleepovers. And in the category "Things I Never Thought I'd Say": God bless texting, tweeting, and messaging for their power to keep our girls emotionally connected even when they're physically separated.
For the most part, I've clamped my mouth shut on "everything will be okay." Instead, I'm telling my sweet girl a couple things that are probably more true:
It will get better (but you might not realize it until a little ways down the road).
Things will not be the same. But they can still be good.