Heartache has visited the Cheese house.

While taking my son, the 18 y.o. CTA, to the doctor yesterday to get his Whooping Cough swab and five outrageously expensive tablets of Zithromax, he informed me that the girlfriend of several months, at whose university he was exposed to the disease,had broken up with him last Thursday.

It was kind of unusual for him to be talking with me so openly about this relationship, so I wisely just kept my mouth shut and listened. After he finished telling me, I started slowly asking questions: How did he feel about the breakup? Why was he over there on Saturday if they were broken up? Do they think they will still be friends? (I told him the story of how his dad and I tried the "just friends" stage and it lasted about 48 hours and we were back together again.) While he was offering his increasingly brief answers, his spirit seemed to sag even lower and lower.

I told him how sorry I was that this one didn't work out--said how much I'd liked her, even though I hadn't gotten chance to get to know her. It was true; I'd seen her a few times at our house. Most of the time they were at her university. Then he kind of casually mentioned that she'd gotten kicked out of her dorm, and was failing all her classes. "Because of you?" I asked.

"No, mom. Because she has lots of problems." I sighed my biggest Mom-sigh. We've been down this road before. My son loves the ones with problems. I think of it as his picking up strays. He jokingly calls it his "spidey sense". Most of his friends and girlfriends throughout the years have come from troubled backgrounds. I don't know why. Many a time he has left the comfort and safety of our home to go rescue a pal in distress. I am generally pleased that he does this, except for the time 2 years ago when he left Youth Group to drive into San Francisco to keep a friend from taking a bottle of pills. He thought he could talk her down better than the paramedics. I lost sleep for three nights over that one.

So his latest ex has problems. The kind that CTA cannot solve. The kind that usually land a kid like her in a treatment center. There are many steps back to normalcy for her--at least twelve big ones. I now know why he was at her dorm on Saturday even though they broke up on Thursday. He was trying to help her break a distructive pattern of behavior. He now realizes he was in over his head, because he was in it with his heart.

I'm so sorry--sorry that at this young age he must learn that sometimes loving someone is not enough to help them be who they need to be. I'm sorry that he got his heart--his great big, open, heart--broken. I'm sorry that this young woman does not have my terrific son in her life anymore. I'm sorry that there is nothing I can do to make this better. Im sorry that she is facing such a long road back, but is so far unwilling/unable to take the first step. And I'm sorry that a mother's love is not enough.