Good-Bye

Ever thought much about that word? Growing up as a missionary kid I became very familiar with cyclical goodbyes. Goodbye to friends in OR to go overseas. Goodbye to that country to come stateside. Goodbye to parents to go to school. Goodbye to school friends to spend the summer at home….I quickly learned that many of the things people say about “goodbyes” are plain silly!

“Goodbye doesn’t mean forever” – oh really? I have plenty of dear friends who I said goodbye to 24 years ago, that I’ve never seen again.

“Friends Forever” – hmmm.

“Don’t think of it as goodbye; think of all the hellos you get to say”. OK now…but how does that help the pain of leaving the current friends? The goodbyes are not any less real for thinking of the hellos. If you want to be completely cynical about it, every hello is simply a goodbye waiting to happen.

MK’s learn at a young age to get good at saying goodbye. Don’t think about the parting, smile; don’t cry….life goes on. You’ll make new friends.

Then Mike entered the military. Spouses are told at deployment briefings, “Smile, when your spouse leaves. The worst thing you can do is let your spouse see you crying as he goes into battle, he needs to know that you are strong and can handle things.” I’ve noticed, however, that many, many men/women do not LOOK back when they are leaving…maybe they are told to look straight ahead as the “worst thing they can do is let their spouse see them crying as they go into battle?”

I’ve gotten good at stoically saying goodbye. This was brought home to me by Corinna last summer. She drove the kids and me to the airport when we left AK. She later wrote to me that we were so “strong” she and I. Both Third Culture Kids…we said goodbye, no tears, and quick hugs and quickly walked away…never looking back. I got good at it…until last September when the girls left for WA. Who would have guessed how hard it would hit this expert farewell taker to say goodbye to two girls? I’d been told for months “at least you have a houseful to keep you busy” and had come to think that the children at home would insulate me from the pain that mothers most often experience when children leave home.

It didn’t.

Those who know me will guess this is coming…I did a word study on this one. Good means beneficial. Bye means leave taking. I stated last week that it seemed that many of my goodbyes haven’t fit the definition…but this goodbye does. It IS beneficial. It has been a JOY to see how the girls have embraced God’s call for their lives. It has been a blast to see how they have grown and matured and flown strong these past few months. It has been beneficial. It has proven that our lifestyle of parenting…releasing them when they were strong was valid for our family. They were ready to soar. They were not social misfits who wouldn’t fit out in “the real world”. They have had no trouble learning to interact with new authority figures.

And so we prepare to say goodbye once more at 0 dark thirty. This time for eight months. We entrust them to God’s care as they return to Master’s Commission. We eagerly look forward to seeing the growth and work that will occur in their lives in the next eight months.

There is a quote that has spoken volumes to me for years. Elizabeth Stone says, “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body”. It has never spoken as loudly to me as it has since September of 2005. Even with a houseful of children, parts of my heart are walking around WA. Think of it though: parts of my heart are touching the hearts of others for His glory! This is beneficial…good even.

And so the time has come. Back to feeling that things are not quite “right”; though they are perfectly right. Back to counting heads 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 9 in WA. Yes, Donna, you were right. I survived the goodbyes this fall and then they came home, and now they’ll leave again and as you warned me it will hurt all over again…but the hurt is good. The season is good. The day the girls left in September I seemed to be surrounded with 50 year old ladies and their 80 year old moms. I was feeling bad about all the duos and felt God speak to me that it is about seasons. We’ll be together again in the same house…and this time THEY’LL get to be the care provider. {Grin} This goodbye really isn’t forever. This time we really are forever friends. It is a beneficial leave taking.

And now the time has come to say – Goodbye!

Day Twelve of Vacation – 1 January 2006

Today was another nearly perfect day.

After the a.m. activities we headed out to find some more “treasure”. We are really enjoying this new past time. We discovered 2 new areas of town today and 4 more caches. Mom, you’ll be interested to know that Nolan has volunteered the use of his “lizard box” as the family “cache box” or “treasure chest”. We thought that the items we keep which the kids don’t want to play with, will go in there. Today we found a military Operation Northern Watch coin, a Euro coin and a cool wooden TX cut out that a fellow geocacher uses as their signature. I was excited that kids and I were able to find one on our OWN. Then I kept the younger 4 down below near a river while Mike took the older 5 to charge up a hill in search of a difficult find. They found it. Zander had been sleeping when we did this a couple of days ago. He was DAZZLED by the treasure in the little boxes that kept popping up on our hikes! I think he will expect to find boxes on all hikes from here on out. {Grin}

After we had found the four cache’s we’d hoped to find we headed for Dairy Queen….the real treasure of the day was getting out in the sunshine and spending time together. Can you believe it is 80* here on 1 Januaray????

The girls are packing, we will play Night Sky Monopoly, and that will neatly bring the day to an end.

Geocaching Photos:

Can you see the cache? Bre & Arielle did

Jared discovers his 1st Cache

Feeding Frenzy...

Sunset at the last cache site