To Struggle with Goodbye

Well, today was the last day of school!  While kids all around us were cheering and bursting through doors, tripping over each other to get outside to their freedom, there my child stood; feet planted firmly into the ground.  With crocodile tears running down her cheeks, and her teacher standing helplessly beside her looking from her face to mine with an expression that told me that this was not something that she had been prepared for, Savannah stood screaming at the top of her lungs, "NOOO!!! I don't want Kindergarten to be over! I don't want to leave Mrs. Heilman!" 

I have been trying to prepare Savannah for this day for a few months now, but haven't been able to convince her that school ending for the Summer is anything but the end of the world.  For her, it is. Savannah's heart doesn't play by the rules; the rules that insist that there will come a time when she should cease to cling and gracefully walk away; the unspoken rule that states that love is temporary sometimes.  When Savannah loves someone she loves them deeply, treasuring every single moment with them, and even as she says hello..her heart is dreading the goodbye.  She loves Kindergarten, and she loves Mrs.Heilman.  As I watched her screaming and clinging to her teacher, I  almost grabbed her and told her to snap out of it, but would that have been the right thing to tell that heart?  That love isn't worth that pain?  That love calmly walks away?  That love is restrained?  Wouldn't that have made me a liar? Instead, I began to cry right along with her...and then her teacher did as well.  

I'm sure that the significance of this event would seem to be nothing more than an emotional fit by an over-dramatic little girl to a lot of people. I am also positive that some parents would believe that I handled the situation poorly by not telling her to calm down and "get herself together", but they don't know my Savannah like I do.  I know her heart, because I have one just like it. The girl inherited her mama's struggle with goodbye.  It should be so difficult to teach a lesson to your child that you struggle with yourself, but isn't it a beautiful thing how the Lord teaches?  It is the easiest to give advice about the things that we know.  I can tell her that it is okay to grieve for these things and to take her time.  I can explain to her that the Lord made her heart this way for a reason.  I can teach her that when she loves Jesus that way, that not only does she never have to say goodbye, but that she is actually reflecting a sliver of the same urgency in which He loves her.  It isn't shameful...because goodbye doesn't come so easy to Him either. Does His love "play by the rules"?  Does He ever "cease to cling and gracefully walk away"?  Is it ever temporary?  No, He plants Himself firmly into our hearts and screams, "YOU ARE WORTH THE PAIN!  I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU!"

I can tell her these things, because these are the things that my own heartbreaks and struggle with goodbye have taught me. So what came first?  Was my struggle my own, or was it to glean wisdom to help my child through her heartbreaks?  In the Lord's omniscience, I'd say that the answer is both.