Saying goodbye

I met with Susie to say goodbye today.  I told her I was stressing about the last sermon this Sunday.  In her direct way she wondered what was such a big deal about saying goodbye.  Great conversation.  Life is good here, life will be good there, or not.  There really isn't a lot to say.  Just say goodbye, don't talk about it, and get on with it already.  This rings true to me because she and I are a lot alike.  We like starting things, love the excitement and new possibilities of beginnings, and get bored easily once things get chugging along, chomping at the bit to build something else.  That is one of the surprising things about this appointment, me at age 56 (just about), and us, Harriet and I, at 15 (just about).  I'm not bored at all -- I am engaged in the questions lived with folks I've know a long time, more curious about how to get through long term issues.

Susie is a remarkable human being, one of the best I have known in my life, though if she reads this I risk getting skewered on a spit.  She is an inseparable blend of being perfectly devout and incurably  heretical.  Most of my good friends probably fall somewhere in that territory, now that I think about it.  

And this is probably an answer to why saying goodbye is so hard for me.  There are remarkable human beings all around me.  All different, all loved.  No single goodbye could possibly work because each honoring is unique.   Impossible.  Time doesn't allow for all the goodbyes.  It is not like the boxes which somehow or another all have to get on the truck and go.  At some point, I just have to leave every unspoken goodbye scattered on the floor and move on.