Good-bye, friend!

I hate good-byes. Hate them. Not the good-byes at the end of an evening with friends, or even the good-byes at the end of a visit when you know you won't be seeing the person for several months. It's the forever good-byes that leave me feeling something akin to a dull ice pick has gouged clear through my heart. Even when its not me that's really doing the good-bying.

Today is Adam's best friend's last day at school before he moves to Illinois. They have been friends since Nick started at 6mos old. Can a 6mos old really have a "friend"? I can honestly say, yes. Adam and Nick have intentionally played together since they could crawl to each other. They would chase each other around the highchairs on their chubby little knees and as they got older give each other hugs, unprovoked, several times a day. They have spent five days a week for three years together playing, painting and napping and have learned everything from walking to talking to pooping on the potty within each other's sight. In essence, they are brothers.

So last night Adam and I made Nick a personalized Lightning McQueen keychain out of foam craft beads as a going away gift. While I watched Adam clumsily thread the plastic string through each letter of Nick's name I thought whether or not to try and explain about Nick moving away. Should I try and tell him in three-year old terms what was coming or just wait and see if he asks about him. I went with the proactive approach since experience has taught me Adam usually takes things pretty well if he has time to roll them around in his head a few times. "So, tomorrow is Nick's last day at school." He continued to thread the beads. "Nick and his mommy and daddy are moving to a new town". More beads. "After tomorrow, Nick won't be in your class anymore". His little hands stopped, and he looked up at me with this bewildered, sad face and said matter of factly, "But I will miss him" as if making this statement would clear these crazy thoughts of moving from everyone's head. "I know you will sweetie, so will I". But the saddest part for me isn't that he'll miss him, it's that after a week or two, he won't. A three-year old lives with very little past and even less future. They are completely in the moment. So even though Nick has been his pal, his playmate, his co-consipirator for three years, little more than a flicker of memory and a scrapbook page documenting their brotherhood will remain. I know Adam will make other friends, even Adam knows this. . . within minutes of finishing the beaded keychain he was talking repeatedly of Sean, another boy in his class, but still that wickedly dull ice pick haunts my heart when I think of the budding friendship that will be lost. . . . and the possiblility that for even a moment my little boy's heart might feel the same way.