We experienced what, for us, was a bittersweet moment yesterday
at a party for a friend of ours who is about to move away.
Happy for her as she moves back to Baltimore to be a grandma…
but what brings tears to our eyes…
is that she has become a good friend and we’re not ready to say goodbye.
We have shared some happy memories…but we feel a little unprepared….
to deal with the emptiness of the memories we know we could have shared.
We want her to know how happy we are for her
without revealing the endless reasons why….
we will begin to miss her the moment we say goodbye.
And then we realized…there is no reason why…
No reason we could think of…why we have to say goodbye.
Knowing once you love someone…even when you’re apart
you carry paintings of them in your memory…
and pieces of them in your heart.
And so…with no goodbye, no final farewell…
no au revoir…no amen
we gave her a smile and a hug then said…until we meet again.
Leaving the door open…as she’s about to go…
for the next time we will see her…
the next time we say Hello!