Weep for the Lack

So many other guys have girlfriends, I really want to have a girlfriend too.
I'm lonely on weekends, ever since I hurt my friend--we don't talk much since then.
They don't think about how I feel, don't consider what I gave, I think they're just selfish.

So many things he wanted to talk about, burdening him down.  I'm so glad he did, and it was a great conversation--talking about how we let other people know how we feel, apologize when we've done wrong, evaluate why we might want to be in a relationship.

I cried after he left though. I just feel bad for him, wish he didn't have to wait until high school, to get here and have to talk to me about this stuff. I cried for his lack!

These are questions a guy should have been talking with his parents on and off again, over and over again, over the years growing up. They are the ordinary questions of growing up, learning to live, learning to make things right with others, learning to apologize, or let others know when they've hurt you, etc. But who has instructed him?

And then the other painful part...family.

Other students ask me about my dad. I don't know what to say. I say he's away.
My mom...came home at spring festival...she's lost a lot of hair, has way more wrinkles...and she brought a man with her, I don't like the way the people in the village talk about this...
...only cried once since dad died (abt 10 years ago), that was last term when mom was about to have surgery.

Did no one reach out to this guy and give him opportunities to grieve after his dad died? Well, can't blame anyone else, they didn't know either, but...

Now, in grade 11 he wants to talk, wants to know what to do about these. I love his heart, that he wants to learn. 

Tonight he plans to make an appointment to get together with his friend. He'll put away 'face' and apologize later in the week, and hopefully regain a friend. He's learning the skills.  (Skills I'm still working on myself.)
I just hurt that he hasn't had parents to walk this with him, that he has to try so hard to be strong.  (His sister--oh, I can't say for sure, but I think her 'trying to be strong' is in her over the top exuberance. Ah...)

I love this part of the work I do, the one-on-one walking with students. But I wonder...if it had been me...oh...