Matt’s Heartache

We were eating breakfast the other morning when Matt rather forlornly said, “I kinda got a heartache.”

What?!?  This took me by complete surprise.  First of all, I didn’t even realize Matt was in a relationship that could result in a heartache.  There was a significant other?  Who knew!  Not his momma, that’s for sure.  And secondly, Matt’s not really one for confiding matters of the heart.

So my motherly instinct kicked in and I started rehearsing what I should say.  “Oh honey, it will be okay.  These things are just a part of life.  And while they seem hard at the time, we can learn from them and move on.  Don’t get down about it, sweetie.  You will get through this.”

Yep.  That sounded fine by me, so I went over and put my arm around my big, strong, 14-year-old’s broken-hearted shoulders and started in on my comforting pep talk.

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry.  These things happen and while I didn’t realize you had a girlfriend, —”  I was really laying on the sympathy here.  I mean, I wanted my sweet boy to know that I was there for him in his time of heartache.

Right about then, Matt looked up at me with a perplexed expression, scooted his chair back ever so slightly, looked down at his plate and said, “No.  Mom.  I said I kinda got a hard egg.”

Silence….

“Oh,” I said.

And you know what, I’d already gone to the effort of thinking of the comforting words my son needed to hear, so I just went ahead and used them anyway to deal with The Crisis of the Hard Egg… “Oh honey, it will be okay.  These things are just a part of life.  And while they seem hard at the time, we can learn from them and move on.  Don’t get down about it, sweetie.  You will get through this.” 

I thought it was perfectly appropriate.  Matt was less than impressed.

And for the rest of the day, I went around singing, “It’s a Heartache…nothing but a heartache…”

Have a great day!