Goodbye

I remember when we met. May 17, 1968.

I was infatuated, but we had to say goodbye the next weekend. He graduated and I had to go home for the summer.

I don't remember all the days we were together over the years, but I do remember the goodbyes. Each one was painful in its own way for its own reason.

At first it was just goodbye for a week or two. After all we had just met and we lived two hours apart.

But then it was goodbye for six weeks. Basic training seemed like forever. We wrote every day and I managed to put together a crazy round about way to be there for graduation. We were only together for a few hours before it was goodbye again and this time I was afraid it would be forever.

But it wasn't. Months passed and we were granted a month together. At the end of that month I rode with him to a mall where my parents picked me up to take me home and he got into a car filled with uniformed soldiers to leave for Vietnam. I remember looking out the back window of the car, watching his car, thinking I might never see him alive again. There was a war going on and I was surprised to find tears rolling down my cheeks seemingly of their own accord. It was the most desolating goodbye of my life.

The ache of young lovers feels unbearable, but it is not. That's why they say all things are bearable with love. He did come back. For his father's funeral, but only for a month and it was goodbye again. I was beginning to hate airports.

Short timers are often at risk and the days before our wedding were filled with apprehension. It was pointless. We were married and you would think that would be the end of the goodbyes.

Only it wasn't. Now there were even more painful and foreboding and sad goodbyes to face. The third one turned out to be forever.

Jarring. Surreal. But it was good.

Sometimes goodbye is the best thing that can happen between two people. It doesn't make it easy. It's not supposed to be easy. Forever is a long time.

Through the years all those goodbyes gave me a bit of wisdom. I knew I was strong. I knew life went on even when I was sad and I knew that eventually something even better would most likely come along.

And it did.