My little one and a half year old grandson just had his first heartache last week. When my daughter-in-law told me this story, it tugged at my heart strings.

His older brother just started pre school and this is the first time that they have been separated. Like most brothers they have had their good times playing together along with all of the fights that come along with it when they don’t see eye to eye or get their own way.

Last week she saw him sitting on the floor holding his brother’s toy while he was in school and he was quitely sobbing. Big tears ran down his face. She asked him what was wrong, and he just sat there sobbing quietly. She realized that he was holding his brother’s toy.

She asked him, “Are you missing Bubba?” “Yea-us” he sobbed. He was having his first bout of separation anxiety.

How it hurts to miss someone we love. Those feelings begin early and continue throughout our lives.

As we get older, we tend to shove those feelings deep inside and put on a brave front for the world. He hadn’t learned to do this yet. In his innocence he only knew that he was sad and that he missed his brother. No doubt, he was remembering all of the times that he and his brother had played with that toy and he was missing those times.

Sometimes love hurts. But to love and be loved is to know that someone cares that we are here and that we have made a difference in someone’s life. So I guess that is one reason that we keep taking the chance to be hurt; because it is worth the risk. To love and to be loved; what could really be more important in life than that?