When Your Best Friend Moves Away

Last week, my ten-year-old daughter's best friend moved nearly 600 miles away.  It's been hard.  This is my daughter's first real heartbreak in life, and the heartbreak is real.  Whether you're 10 or 40 or 70, after all, when you're separated from someone you love, it's painful.

I've thanked God for this dear friend.  She moved to our town a few years ago, and she and my daughter quickly formed a bond.  They've never hit a glitch since then -- just sweet and spunky friendship, wild imaginations and silly conversations, playing on the playground and being happy kids together.  Each has been a fixture at the other's house; each has blended right in at the other's dinner table.

My daughter's friend now faces the excitement of something new, but it's tinged by the sharp scariness of unfamiliar routine, location, and people.  My daughter still is wrapped in the familiar comfort of her same life, but she realizes that the landscape isn't as complete as it once was.  Both will learn how to navigate their altered terrains.

And both will make it.  They'll never forget each other, but they'll forge ahead.

Right now, I stand to the side as the parent, knowing that while I can support and counsel my daughter as she's feeling these emotions of loss, she needs to process them.  She needs to grieve a bit.  I listen for when she wants to talk, and I recognize that she sometimes wants to be silent.  

We parents want to protect our kids from hurts, but some types of hurt just need to be felt.  Some hurts are a simply byproduct of being human.  Some hurts show that you love.