Mending A Broken Heart

2012

Look at those two sweet boys. Best-est buds from the moment they met when they were four years old. I remember walking Austin in a stroller while he held onto his Batman action figure and his friend walking right beside him while they chatted it up. It melts my heart when I remember that day. Such sweetness.

Over the years Austin and his friend would grow close and then move apart like friendships sometimes do. They always seemed to come back to each other at some point and become friends again.

Until the day the couldn't. There had been an accumulation of incidents and Austin became increasingly impatient with his friend. We were at his friend's house before we moved to San Francisco and the boys were having a hard time. At one point Austin's friend told him, "I wished you never came over." That was more than Austin could handle hearing from his best friend. It broke his heart; it made him mad; furious even. Austin came in the room in tears demanding that we leave.

That was almost three years ago. Since that day Austin has turned his friend into a monster, his arch-nemesis. His old friend had become all the evil that is wrong in the world and I have listened to it for three long years. I've tried many different ways to approach this; empathy, sympathy, reason, anger, frustration, threat of punishment. None of it helped relieve the distress Austin was feeling.

Some time went by. I don't know how much time, but I did notice that I hadn't heard his friend's name for a while. I didn't think Austin had forgot about him, but was glad not to be dealing with a problem I clearly didn't know how to deal with. Yesterday while I was writing Austin a secret message he out of nowhere started talking about how he hates his old friend. I lost it. I told him he is no longer allowed to mention that boy's name in this house ever again. NEVER! Then the next morning he said something about again about his friend and I lost it, again.  I decided we were going to end this saga today one way or another.

I decided we were going to go to his friend's house.

P. Terry's burger joint was giving away free t-shirts today so it was known the plan to go get one.  We got in the car and started driving. I didn't say anything about my plan. I just drove. As we got closer to his friend's house house Austin said, "This neighborhood is freaking me out." I asked him why. He said, "because it looks like my friend's neighborhood."

When we turned down the street where his friend lived Austin started to get really anxious. I told him we were not going into the house, we were just going to sit outside, in the car, and talk. I put the car in park, looked at him, and said, "This is the house where a little boy, who one day got really frustrated and said something hurtful lives. He's just a little boy. There are no monsters or bad guys that live there. Just a little boy and his family."

He told me he was scared. I asked why. He said he was worried his friend's mom was going to come out and see us. I asked him what would happen if she did. He said we might go in and I asked then what. He said he would see "that terrible thing" and I asked, "then what" again. We went on for while talking about what would happen if we went in. Even if going in was the worst thing that could happen, we would still go home and live our lives.

After a while of silence, just looking at the house Austin unbuckled and said, "Let's go see if he's home." I told him if he was ready to talk to his friend I would call his mom and set something up. He said okay and told me he thought maybe he could let go of his hurt. I asked him if he was ready to go home and he said yes so I started to drive. Austin started to cry. Hard. I pulled over and asked if he wanted a hug and he said no, he just wanted tissue. So I gave him one. He took these deep breaths and exhaled with a WOO! I asked him how he was feeling and he said, "sad and scared and hopeful." He said he was sad that he had been mad for so long, scared that his friend wouldn't want to talk to him, and hopeful for the future.

On the way over to Austin's friend's house I was scared,worried and hopeful. I was scared of what Austin's reaction would be. I was worried what I was doing the wrong thing. I was hopeful that seeing his friend's house would trigger something for Austin and help him move out of being stuck in hate and resentment.

I can't say with any certainty what I did was the best thing to do. I hope I helped him move on. I hope that for both of us. I, too am hopeful for the future.

*I emailed Austin's friend's mom when we got home and asked if they would like to come over. About a week later they did come over and played Minecraft for a little bit while I caught up with his mom. Turns out they are moving out of the country in a couple weeks. 

After they left Austin talked to me a bit about how the visit went. It went well, but not great. There were no disagreements or anything. It was just that they have both grown so much and in different ways, that there wasn't a lot of connection.

Knowing  they will be moving so far away soon, I am glad that they got a chance to see each other, as friends, before he left.