Five Minute Friday. These are the rules of the game:
- Write for 5 minutes.
- Link to the 5 minute Friday link at Gypsy Mama. (defunct now.) Five Minute Friday is now here.
- Make an encouraging comment to the person before you…and anyone else you’d like:)
GO
Of all the words, this is one I hate…really hate!
I’m tired of “good-byes”.
Each time I moved as a child
I said “good-bye” to people I cared for.
I tho’t my heart would break each time.
I would lie in bed at night anticipating
those moves and cry over the people I would miss
and never see again!
Then there were all the times I had to say good-bye to family
I was only 14 when I left home to go to school in the U.S.
I never lived at home again after that except for vacation visits.
Each move brought change…lots of change.
In some cases, we had to learn a new language to live there.
In others, we had to adjust to new weather.
But always, we had change and many new adjustments.
We said “good-bye” to some things we loved
“Hello” to new adventures.
We also said “Hello” to new life-styles occasionally.
Not all were improvements over what we knew.
Then there were the final good-byes.
The sudden ones where my dad went so fast we couldn’t say “goodbye” STOP
The long, drawn-out ones where dementia and gradual failing health was involved.
It was a relief to know they had passed on to heaven
from this “veil of tears.”
I still remember one “good-bye”
We stood around her body and touched its coldness
She was gone.
She was rejoicing in heaven.
She was no longer captive in a demented body that couldn’t function.
She was truly alive!
It was difficult to feel sad for her…
If logic was the only part of the equation…
But it wasn’t.
She was gone.
Our lives were intertwined with hers
We were going to miss her.
Good-bye! We love you!
We hugged each other
Shed tears and hugged each other.
Then walked out of the funeral home together.
We were her grown children and had said “good-bye.”
I love your post. So much of it resonates with me.
Just wondering . . . are you an MK? Lots in here makes me think you could be.
yes, but i’m a funky MK. my parents were missionaries when i was very young (14 mon. -age 4) in bolivia. then not again until i was in 9th grade when they went to costa rica. since i needed my high school credits, i had to come back to the US for high school. Because of that, i don’t have the advantage of being bilingual. are you an MK?
Great post about the sweetness and bitterness of saying good bye. There is always something unknown on the other side of a good bye, sometimes good sometimes not so. The trust though must come from God. He knows where the path on the other side of good bye leads for us.
i like your observation re something unknown being on the other side of a good-bye. i’ll be thinking about that this week, i’m sure:)