Today I drove to Goodbye. The best friends of my two older kids are moving away tomorrow. We drove over to their house to bid our final farewells, and it was just not good. There are easy goodbyes and hard goodbyes, and this was definitely a hard goodbye.
It made me wonder what's really the best way to deal with Goodbye. Is it better to keep it casual, letting it simply slip away like another day? Or to face it head on, driving right up to it, and engaging it? When it's important, like today's goodbye, I lean toward making sure everyone feels like they had sufficient goodbyeing time complete with hugs, well wishes, and hopes of meeting again.
But it sure is messy that way. Is it just too hard? Or is there just no good way around it? At least the direct approach minimizes the risk of things left unsaid. I hate the regret of things never spoken and hugs not given. And so I drove to Goodbye.
As we drove home from our friends' house, my children sat in tears asking why. They had said their goodbyes, but their hearts had not reconciled it yet.
Later my daughter asked if we could go to the pool this evening so she could just forget. It seems to me a certain amount of forgetting is a good thing. It helps take the edge off Goodbye anyway. So we headed to the pool, and laughed and splashed and played like it was any other day.
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