Learning to say goodbye
Oct 5, 2015
A few days ago, I got to rip out the September page off my wall calendar. I had been looking forward to doing that, but when the time came, I stopped to look at one little square before I crumpled it up.
I stopped to think about that one particular day, and to say goodbye one last time.
On the 4th of September, one of my dearest friends moved back home with her family. I cried like a baby, as I cry now while typing these words. I’d known the day was coming for some time, and yet I still could not deal with it gracefully. For the rest of the month of September, that square, marked with my friend’s name followed by a sad face stared me in the eye, as if challenging me to remain strong and collected, when every bone in my body shook with the urge to break down in a teary mess right there on the kitchen floor.
What I find most ironic about this reaction is that I am supposed to be immune to this. Having been raised in quite a few countries and having attended about ten different schools before going to college, I thought that in my mid-thirties I would be better equipped for painful farewells.
Apparently I was wrong.
A while back, we started a habit of sending out postcards to family and friends who are far away, to let them know we’re thinking of them and miss them. We do that with regular old postcards. Electronic messages are a great way of quickly letting someone know what you’re thinking when you’re thinking it, but receiving a postcard in the mail has a whole other charm to it. It gives a deeper sense of reality when such a big part of our lives has become virtual. I love that we started this with our little ones. They’re actually excited about checking the mail because they know they might find something in there for them. They know they have people far away who love them, even though they can’t be with them. And who knows, when the day comes, that just might be the thing they need to help their hearts catch up with their heads.
A new month has begun, and it’s nice to feel that dark cloud slowly moving away. Things are looking brighter and I’m feeling better. Even though my heart still aches and will always ache when I think of her and remember just how much I miss her being around, I know I’ll have her in my life for as long as we’re around. Distances and oceans don’t matter as much now.
And I can only hope that my sensitive little one will see that, in his own time.