Have you ever?

Have you ever received some news that you know is going to destroy your child's world, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it and there is nothing you can even think do that will be good enough to soften the blow? Here I sit, at the crack of dawn having just had a nightmare. You see I received such news yesterday, and the pain I feel for my child...

I just keep remembering this kid that I knew back in 1994. I was about to graduate from college, and I was doing my student teaching at a local school. He was this sweet, sensitive little boy, and personally I found nothing remotely wrong with him. But as I watched him in class I noticed that although there was nothing at all wrong with him, he himself lived a very lonely, isolated life. During the year, I had a parent teacher conference with a mother who informed me that her son, who had always had trouble making friends, had just had his best friend move away and that he, feeling very lonely and isolated, was really struggling in school and in life.

This child completely broke my heart and has always stayed with me. I think there was, even though I was not yet a mother, a part of me that wanted to wrap that child up in love and take away his pain. And as his teacher I offered him all that I could; I offered him my best. But I was only his teacher. What I offered I knew wasn't enough.

Now I am a mother and somewhere in me there has always been this part of me that worries that someday my child will feel the pain and isolation my student felt.

Yesterday I got some news that I fear could make my child feel such isolation. And I worry. For although I once again can try to wrap a child up in love, I know I can not take away his pain. And although I am no longer merely a teacher, I know that as his mother there is only so much I can do. I can offer him a safe place to fall, a safe place to go when it seems that the world is only out to cause him pain. I can love him; I can comfort him. As a mother, I can do my best.

And here in lies the problem. For as my child will soon discover when he receives the news that I have, sometimes your best, well it just isn't good enough. I just hope in this case, it is.