These past few weeks I’ve had several “goodbyes” occur in my life.
Some were planned.
Some weren’t.
The planned ones were mostly happy ones.
I said goodbye to 8 inches of my hair.
I was done with it. Tired of long hair. I had been thinking of getting a change for a while, and a week’s vacation on the windy coast of Maine (and a week of big, static hair) convinced me that now was the time to get a bob.
But if I’m honest, there was some hesitancy there. A little voice in my head said, “You know…you’re getting old enough, and you’ve had a child. Maybe this is the last hurrah for long hair. Maybe your hormones have changed enough that the next time you try to grow long hair it won’t be the locks you long for, but the hay you hate!”
Thoughts like that can be quicksand for decision-making.
But…it was time to make a change and say ‘goodbye’ to the hair. But it was a little harder to say goodbye to 8 inches than it was 8 years ago when I cut the same amount off.
Another goodbye was a stage in life of parenting.
It was a little goodbye. My child started kindergarten.
I realize that we didn’t ship her off to college or abroad, but still, it is a goodbye. Goodbye to half days. Goodbye to having her around the house in the early afternoons. Goodbye to scheduling events based only on my or my husband’s calendar. Now we have to look at three calendars to make any kind of plans.
It’s also a goodbye to a sense of control. My child is opened to a much broader world, and that is wonderful…and also terrifying. As a pastor, I am privy to the beauty and heartache that is in this world, and very aware of the brokenness within it. And saying goodbye to this stage of parenthood means that I’m journeying with my child into the deeper waters of this broken world.
Let’s just say my prayers have become much more regular!
And yet, my child loves this new stage of life. Though it be tempting for me to keep her locked in the bubble of preschool and parental safety forever, to do so would be to rob her of the joy of the journey.
Some of the goodbyes have not been planned.
I’ve sat by the hospital beds of two members of my church as they take their last breaths on this earth.
For one, this was a timely goodbye. He had lived a long life, and the last few years were in pain and trial. He was at peace.
For another, the goodbye was not timely.
The goodbye was like a thief that acted quickly and harshly.
It was not fair.
And yet, somehow in the midst of sorrow and grief, I believe that this person is too at peace, and I pray that the Lord will help we who remain in our journey find peace, as well.
A more mundane unplanned goodbye was the trade-in of the car we’ve had these last 15 years.
As we said goodbye to that car, unexpected emotion seemed to find its way to the surface. That car had seen us through the 2008-09 recession where gas prices. It had carried our stuff to Florida when I took an internship down there and we need something dependable to take us on a long journey. And it remained dependable as we traveled to far places like Ohio, Nebraska, and Maine. Our family grew from two to three, and that car helped to cart us all around.
It served us well and it was time to say goodbye.
And I’m guessing the tears that formed around that car were less about the car itself, and more about how it had been used to get my family from one area of the country to another, how many times we waved goodbye to family as we left a week of vacation with them, and how I used that car faithfully to visit church members. Some of them who were saying goodbyes of their own.
Indeed goodbyes can get a bit harder with experience, but it’s the deep wells of promise and hope that make these goodbyes less sad, for with the goodbyes we can welcome frivolous hair cuts, new stages of schooling life, and new ways to travel.
And yes, the goodbyes that remind us that we are but mortal become less bitter when we dip into the well of hope so that we can turn our “goodbye” into “till we meet again.”
