Goodbyes: The Bitter and the Sweet

This has been a week of goodbyes.  As friends and classmates finish off their final exams, we say goodbye and leave the college for the summer or forever.  Today I've said goodbye to a lot of friends.  Sometimes we say, "Have a good summer.  See you in September!"  Other times we pause a bit longer and say, "Well, have a good summer.  I'm sure I'll see you around sometime."  And then there are the goodbyes that go something like this: "Well, have some good adventures.  All the best to you.  Maybe I'll see you again...maybe."  I've been dreading this week, rehearsing saying such things without awkwardness or tears.

I've always known that goodbyes are hard.  They can be bittersweet, but usually I find them to be more bitter than sweet.  In fact, this rash of goodbyes brings to memory another time when I said goodbye.  It was after my trip to Kenya.  All of us on the team had grown close and we were exchanging phone numbers and e-mail addresses as the airplane made it's final descent into Calgary.  Already we had said goodbye to our team leaders in Nairobi and to one member of our team in Amsterdam.  As various members of the team made plans with each other for road trips and visits, I sat slumped in my seat, dejected.  I figured I would never see most of these people again.  I was going home to the farm and they were going back to cities and towns across Canada, from Surrey, BC to Nackawic, NB.  My severely sleep-deprived brain could not fathom a situation in which I would see my friends again, except maybe the two from Edmonton.  Those goodbyes in the airport at Calgary were awfully bitter.  But, they didn't need to be.  I have lost count of the number of times that I have seen my Kenya team since then.  We don't always see each other all together, but there are weddings and road trips and other events where we gather and reminisce and make new memories.

I expected some of my goodbyes today to be bitter like those goodbyes in the Calgary airport were.  They weren't, though.  As I hugged my friends goodbye (yes, I hugged some of them), I realized that these goodbyes were actually rather sweet.  Of course, the "see-you-next-year" goodbyes were a piece of cake.  The other goodbyes, those to the friends that I don't know if or when I'll see them again, those were harder, but they weren't bitter.  I don't really know why.  Maybe it's because of the hope that I will see them again.  Maybe it's because I'm not quite so sleep deprived this time.  Or maybe it's because...well, I don't really know how to put it into words.  These friends, they taught me that I can make friends and that I can trust people.  They taught me that I don't have to hold on so tight to them because they'll hold on to me, too.  They taught me that I can let go without losing the people I'm letting go of.  And even if we only rarely see each other, it'll always be a happy reunion.  And...this seems strange to me, but I think was easier to say goodbye knowing that we'll all move on and make new friends and maybe even forget each other for a little while.  My friends here have taught me so much about friendship and including people and just living life with whoever is there right at that moment.  I'll miss them, yes, but the parting is much more sweet than bitter.