I didn’t know what reservoir of sadness he’d gone

swimming in. It seemed so deep and wide. It could have been the divorce, the living in two houses; it could have been living with an older sister who wanted to dump her own frustrations on him;

it could have been hard times at school.

It could have been
anything and
everything.

He wasn’t lying. He really didn’t want to talk about it, and I could see that my questions were not only taking me down a road to nowhere, but that he was closing up. Already, he’d crossed his arms to further fortify his position.

“Will you show me how you’re feeling?”

Then I witnessed another subtle shift, one slightly in the direction of curiosity. The question was a new one from me, and didn’t quite make sense. How do you do that?

We went upstairs to my quiet, carpeted bedroom, and plopped on the floor with a big, fluffy pillow and a box of tissues. He looked somewhat perplexed as I told him to sit on the floor with his feet against the wall and his knees bent. I sat with my back against his and braced my feet against the bed. I asked him to show me how strong his feelings were by pushing against my back. I told him that if his feelings weren’t that strong, he could push gently, but that if his feelings were really strong, he could push against me really hard. I told him he couldn’t hurt me—I knew this would be important to him, and help him dig a little deeper into his strength—so let it rip. Grunt if you need to.

And he did. He grunted and shoved and pushed, and grunted and shoved some more. He’s quite a bit smaller than I am, so I made sure to be affected by all his great efforts, and included a few grunts of my own to indicate how hard I was working to keep from being shoved under the bed. At one point he rolled off my back and landed on all fours, snarling. I held up the pillow and asked if his arms had anything they wanted to contribute. He heaved a few punches into the pillow, then collapsed around it in a heap of sadness.

I didn’t know what reservoir of sadness he’d gone swimming in. It seemed so deep and wide. It could have been the divorce, the living in two houses; it could have been living with an older sister who wanted to dump her own frustrations on him; it could have been hard times at school. It could have been anything and everything. So I sat on the floor, wondering how deep his sadness went, but I didn’t really need to know. I felt content to hold my boy as he held the pillow, which offered him a place to bury his face and

bawl. I knew we were both exactly where we needed to be.

I rubbed his back and wiped away his
tears. I affirmed all his squeaks and moans as
representing all the times he hadn’t said what was
hard or unfair or just plain sad. I felt some of my
own sadness for the choices I’d made, and for the
effects those choices have had on the two people I
love most in the world. We rode out this big wave
of emotions, breathing and letting sadness have
its time and place in our lives. Everything else
that had seemed important earlier that day
faded away. This was the most important
place for me to be: present with my child,
supporting him with my love and
attention.

I didn’t have to change anything, and I didn’t have to figure anything out. There was nothing to be fixed.

There was just this beautiful time of feeling profoundly connected to my son, sharing the universal human experience of sadness. I had the opportunity to sit with him in a way that I knew would help heal how my decisions have hurt him. And if what he was feeling had nothing to do with me, at least this would soften the effects that the world has had on him.

We must have sat there on the floor for 40 minutes or more. My butt began to get sore. But as the minutes ticked by, I was grateful for my experience in staying present with my own emotions. Otherwise, I think I might have been afraid my son would never emerge from the deep well of his feelings. Knowing that these feelings, his and mine, were like waves—each with its beginning, middle, and end—helped me to patiently wait for him to tumble ashore. And when he did, he needed to talk.

I was amazed. I’d thought he didn’t want to talk about it. I was just happy knowing that he wasn’t going to be carrying that tsunami around inside him every day. Now I felt as if I’d just moved into the bonus round—I was actually going to find out what had happened. As much as I know and value the importance of emotional expression, my mind was dancing a jig, because I also love to connect the dots of understanding. I sat there quietly and listened to him, hoping not to jinx my good fortune by saying anything.

It turned out that, a few days before, he had noticed that he was feeling pressured by his