Goodbye

It was the last day of school after my 4th grade year. We stood on the sidewalk in the yellow zone reserved to keep a space between us and the school buses. Today though, the teachers seemed not to notice, or pretended not to care that we were breaking the rules. I'll never know for sure, but I know they said nothing.

I was saying goodbye to Alan. I remember giving him a hug, and having an odd rush of emotions. He just told me that he was moving away, to live with his dad. I didn't know how to say goodbye, I had never had a friend move away before. I felt odd when I pulled away, sitting in the backseat of my moms green Ford Windstar. I was going to miss that skinny, black jeans wearing, obsessed with trains, boy. And I left, and I never saw him again.

Fourteen years later... I drove to Canada with on of my dear friends. We were saying goodbye to a friend, a possible, but hopefully not, forever goodbye. The two of them were much closer that I, and watching their final wave, as our cars headed in different directions, it cut into my heart. I was suddenly a girl of nine all over again, re-discovering goodbyes. Goodbyes are hard, forever's are brutal.

I don't think we were created to say goodbye. In the garden, god walked with Adam and Eve, he never wanted them to say goodbye to those walks, or goodbye to the garden... but man sinned, and and goodbyes came to be.

Canada was hard, thinking about the painful reality of life, but it was harder for my friend, who I know now is experiencing a grieving loss such as I have never known. My forth grade train boy friend doesn't compare to this, but it is the closest I have to understanding outside of simply imagining.

I am reminded of a favorite verse in Psalms: "Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning..."