one of the more difficult things one can go through in life. You may come out stronger, maybe wiser, but that gut-wrenching pain that true heartache brings is hard to experience. It may be difficult to go through yourself, but let me tell you, there is nothing more painful than watching your child experience true heartache.

My children have baby goats, Remy and Jojo. The goats don’t live with us, but they live down the street at my friends’ farm. We visit them as often as we can, we bring them pjs for the cold nights in the barn, and, in general, enjoy the pure love that can exist between animal and person.

This past week I got a call from my friend Gail, who heartbreakingly told me that Jojo passed away. Jojo was my daughter’s goat. I was sick over how I was going to tell her.

My daughter is a sensitive, gentle soul. She has deep love for all things baby and animal, and Jojo was her absolute baby. Oh the heartbreak.

It took me a day to gather myself. I sat her on my lap and told her the news. She immediately began sobbing. I held her and told her how very sorry I was. She buried herself into me and cried and cried. Her sweet little blotchy-from-crying face finally looked at me, “I wish I had the chance to say goodbye.” Oh darling, me too. My heart just broke looking into her sweet little face.

Friends told me I should go for the replacement pet right away, to help ease the pain of it all. But I knew I couldn’t subscribe to that knee-jerk reaction. Believe me, no one wants to have his or her child ever experience sadness, or rejection or struggle. We’d all like to make it just go away, and put them in this protective bubble until they become adults. But I know that reaction is the wrong reaction. Heartache and loss is part of life, and learning to work through that, to feel sadness or rejection or anger, and come out the other side, is one of life’s many great lessons. Feeling heartache makes you so vulnerable, but working through and mending it can make you stronger.

So I held her and offered my sincere condolences without coddling. And a few days later, L was okay. She missed her baby goat, but she told me that she was glad he was in a better place. Me too, my sweet baby girl, me too.