The Long Goodbye Season

Seven weeks from today, our family will be leaving Tanzania, which means that we will have to say goodbye to all the people, places and things that have brought great meaning to our lives over the past two years. That's really difficult.  What's even harder is the fact that between now and then, almost every one of our closest friends will be leaving ahead of us...meaning that we won't say "goodbye" just one time. We will need to say it more like twenty times. 

Summer (or actually it is called "long break" for those of us with opposite seasons) is prime time for teacher missionary travel.  Almost every one of the people we love will be traveling home on a short-term basis, and although they will be returning for the next school year, we will not.

This long season of goodbyes made its debut a couple of weeks ago as new friends Brooklyn and Jonathan returned to the U.S. to have a baby.  It continued on this past week as a family very dear to us - the Pickels - left for Canada.  On and on this season will continue through the following weeks, increasing in magnitude once school ends (June 18) until we ourselves head off to the airport on June 30.  In fact, Tim and I have joked to each other that by the time we leave, we may just be waving goodbye to the empty Hill around us (don't worry, Kappers - we are thankful that you'll still be around).

Does this long, drawn-out process make things easier or more difficult?  To me, it feels like the process of removing a Band-Aid.  Although ripping it off in one quick motion is more painful at the time, it's also over much faster.  If that's a correct analogy, I fear that we're in for a lengthy season of pain.



However, can we actually experience the pain of twenty good-byes or will we begin to become callous in this process because it hurts too much otherwise?  It wasn't too hard for me to leave the U.S. because I always believed I'd return to NJ.  Although I know that things have changed and I have changed, we'll be heading back to a structural set-up that is pretty close to what we left two years ago. However, I already know that I'll never return to this particular set-up...ever.  Even if God calls us back to HOPAC, the community is so transient that it will look almost completely different in just a few years from now.  So saying goodbye here is for real.

I worry that I won't be able to walk my kids through their own emotions because I am busy processing my own responses to transition.  I worry that I won't be able to give my full attention to their grief because I am thinking about 1,000 move logistics details in my head while they are pouring out their souls to me.

I already know that we have different grieving styles in our family and I worry that we will not be able to extend grace to each other in these differences.  "Pre-grievers" mourn the loss before they leave; post-grievers don't express sadness until after the transition has happened.  I already know that I'm a pretty strong post-griever and at least one of my children is a pre-griever.  Neither are "right" or "wrong," but they are very, very different.   For an excellent article summarizing this, click  here

I worry that we will be quickly forgotten and also that we will forget quickly.

I worry that I didn't soak up enough of this life while I had it.  There were days - many days - that felt like they were unending (including yesterday) but overall, it has gone so, so fast.

I can still remember with perfect clarity those first few days of confusion and chaos.  I look back and marvel at the clueless woman that stumbled her way into Tanzania, and then I marvel at how God has been present all along.  I know that He'll be present in this long season of goodbyes, also.