WHO would have thought pre-nursery could be a minefield of potential heartache?

At the start of the school year, my three-year-old son, Julian, made a new friend, D.

With his wide, toothy grin and lanky legs, D soon became the air guitar-strumming foil to my air-drumming son. In class, they delighted in monkeying around.

Because of D, Julian’s school days were a blur of fun. On a field trip to the Night Safari several months ago, the boys sat together in the tram and squealed over the tigers, lions and smelly otters – a trip that Julian still talks about in great detail today.

Whenever his friend was absent from school, he would mournfully inform me that D was not there when the session was over. The next day, he would leap out of bed and hustle me out the door so he could get to school and check if D had returned for classes.

And so it went, until recently. As his amazing biomedical engineer mum geared up to return to the workforce, D made the switch to full-day childcare and quietly disappeared from Julian’s life.

After seeing my son kicking his way home, a little crestfallen that his friend was not there, I decided to be his agent. I dropped D’s mum an e-mail asking her how D was adjusting to his new environment, and explained how Ju was missing his friend.

Would it be possible for the boys to meet up for a playdate sometime when it was convenient?

I was terribly afraid of imposing, and didn’t want to come across as pushy, but it seemed such a shame for the two boys to lose contact.

The Supportive Spouse, however, was more laidback about things.

“He’ll have to get used to such things happening in future,” he opined sagely, as we whispered about Julian’s friends above the oblivious boy’s head. “Friends leave all the time,” he added.

But, protective mum that I sometimes scarily am, I decided that I’d try my best to lessen the gall of separation – for the time being.

D’s mum’s e-mail reply came swiftly – and made me feel like crying. Apparently, he was still adjusting to his situation and talked about his previous school constantly. He would ask his father to call up Julian’s papa, in a bid to touch base with his friend.

Also, both boys were carrying on imaginary conversations with each other on their phones at home. A playdate, she agreed, was a good idea.

The next day, the boys met up at a playground midway between D’s school and our flat.

The reunion was made up of an hour of charging up and down ladders and slides, and lots of happy shouts between mouthfuls of Pocky snacks.

Ju insisted on painting whiskers on D’s face with his face-painting kit. It was the first time in a while, said D’s mum, that she had seen her son smile so happily.

We parted with plans to meet the next day. Once home, tuckered-out Ju took a nap, waking once to ask dreamily: “Do you love D?” Satisfied when I said yes, he fell asleep again.

Hopefully, a friendship that began in the pre-school classroom can transcend its juvenile roots and last into adulthood.

For more my paper stories click here.