Yesterday was a wonderful, amazing, historical day. All of the TVs at work were tuned in and the break room at work was full during the oath and speech. To see all the people gathered and to here the stories of crowds, TVs in McDonalds, cars pulled over with the radios cranked up so that everyone could hear. It’s hard to describe.
I will freely admit, I was much more interested in the ushering in of our new president than the leaving of the old. After all, there was more history involved with Obama being sworn in. I didn’t particularly care to watch Bush get into his helicopter and leave. I was over it, done, fini. I wanted to watch the parade.
But then, last night, I was flipping channels on my TV and caught the tail end of a video essay for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. An essay about the transfer of power, curtain calls, and the importance of saying good bye and it made me think. It made me think about things I don’t always want to think about.
You see, I don’t like saying goodbye. I spent my fifth grade year afraid to make friends because I knew I would have to say goodbye before the year was done. Don’t make friends, don’t say goodbye, don’t get hurt.
Goodbyes can hurt, yet they are so important. I didn’t want to say goodbye to my dad’s parents. I wanted my last memory of them to be one where they still knew who I was. But my parents, in their wisdom, insisted and I went and it was hard. It was hard seeing my grandmother so frail, hard seeing my grandfather talk to the air. I cried and wished I was elsewhere. Less than two weeks later, Grandmother died. Grandfather followed a couple months later. I felt relief but I had been missing them for a couple of years already. Going to see them only confirmed that the frail shells sitting in front of me were not my grandparents. They were ready to go, ready to say goodbye. And it was saying goodbye that released me, that allowed me to grieve honestly, with little regret.
Goodbyes are the natural conclusion of things. But they can also be the beginning of something new. The important thing is knowing when to say them.
