Life Lessons

Rudy experienced a little taste of heartbreak yesterday.

We had just completed our shopping at a local grocery store that offers helium balloons to their child patrons. Rudy had chosen a beautiful bright yellow balloon, which bobbed cheerily above him as we headed out the door. In an attempt to further secure it from 'blowing away', he accidentally loosened it and away it went.

Up, up, up, 'till we couldn't see it anymore.

We must have been a pitiful sight: two year old sobbing for Mommy to tell the balloon to come back, Mommy trying to balance a flat of strawberries on one hip while holding her heartbroken son in the other. I was so sorry for my little man, I just about cried myself as I tried to explain that the balloon would not be coming back.

A well meaning woman, seeming to see my uncertainty about what I should do next, said matter-of-factly, "You'll just have to go back and get another one."

Something in me resisted that suggestion, though. There are lots of things in life that you can't just "go back and get another one" for. And while I knew my son's heart was breaking at the moment, I also know Rudy well enough to know that this crisis was indeed, a mini crisis, and something he could handle with the proper guidance.

So, instead of marching back in to demand our balloon be replaced, I just held him close, and told him how sorry I was that he lost his balloon. After he'd had some time to calm down a bit, I talked to him about how even though it was sad for him to see his balloon go, maybe his balloon was really excited about the grand adventure he was off to, and we talked about all the places the wind might carry that cheery yellow balloon. To the mountains? To the ocean? Would he get to see some whales maybe? Would he visit the airplanes going by?

Rudy seemed to catch on to the make believe, and said he would pretend that he and the balloon would go on the adventure together, and they would fly through the sky and wave at all the people in the airplanes, and everyone would think how lucky he was to be on an adventure with his yellow balloon. And then he would land, and say good bye to the balloon, and his yellow friend would sail off to find more adventure on his own.

After telling that story to ourselves together, we both felt much better, and even cheery about what lay ahead for Rudy's balloon. We gathered our groceries again, and completed the trek across the parking lot to our car.

A bit later, Rudy said something like, "I said good bye to my balloon, so I'm not sad anymore."

What a profound bit of wisdom about dealing with disappointments, sorrow, even heartbreak. When we give ourselves a chance to be sad, and then face the fact that what we wanted to be simply isn't, we free both ourselves and whatever yellow balloon we were calling back to us, and we don't have to be sad anymore. We can get on with our next adventure.

And that's just what we did, my sweet Rudy and me. :)