Considering the Long Goodbye

 From the moment of conception, we are on our way out the door. Our life is relatively long and painfully short in the accounting of it. What we are given and what we take are a matter of wonderment. For instance, life itself. We are the product of cell division that began with two people giving in to their desires and living out their hopes. If we are fortunate enough to make it out into the world, our first experience is a firm tap on our backsides to jumpstart our lives ex utero. A gasp of breath and crying is how we begin our journeys--fitting in its way.

We will be doing a lot of gasping for air and crying in our lifetimes. We'll gasp for air when we are trying to learn to swim. We'll gasp for air when a special person enters our lives and changes it for a moment or, perhaps, for the rest of our lives. We will gasp for air when are on our last breath, too. And we will cry,. Sometimes for joy, but often out of varying degrees of hurt and grief. The one who broke our hearts, the parent who disappointed us, the friend who heard and believed us, and so many times when frustration got the better of us. And when it is time to say goodbye. We will try to hold back those tears, but they will come anyway.

Goodbyes come often, whether it is to school friends at the end of the year or loved ones passing before us, or transitory people like co-workers or love interests people will come and go. In a way, I think of tears as the water that fills the rivers that send these people out ahead of us.

And there is not enough time, so tears are also the cement that mortars the memorial walls that remind us of those who have passed before. They are the punctuation of the sentences of life, the commas, and periods that mark place and time.

So if we choose to linger a bit and consider where we've been and what we've done and those we loved along the way, it doesn't surprise us that tears cascade or creep from our eyes. Making the goodbye a little longer still.