Does Anybody Even Like Goodbyes?

Goodbyes are never fun. I've been getting better at goodbyes, though.
The lives of most of the people around me are a little transient. Semesters change and people scatter across the globe: teaching English in Ukraine and China, preaching the gospel in Timbuktu, or returning to a home state or country after graduation. It gets tiring to always be saying goodbye. Goodbye to roommates that were family day in and day out, sharing so much life and experience and growth together. Goodbye ward friends and classmates, sometimes with the regret that we could have been even better friends than we were. And every time we move, it's goodbye bishop after bishop after bishop who gives much-needed counsel and guidance.

Since many of my own students are in "the system," their lives can change at the drop of a hat. A student works hard to do well and stay clean, earning the privilege to go home. And we have to say goodbye. Sometimes a parent makes a choice or a kid messes up or previous actions catch up to them in court, whisking them away to another program or facility or group home. Sometimes a kid tries to escape their problems by running away. Those kids often are brought back. And then sometimes a kid hates his program, gives up on life, plans to run away to Vegas, doesn't up running, starts doing really well in math again, and then overdoses on some prescription drugs before school, he passes out in class, doesn't wake up, is taken away by paramedics, his teachers search all the trash cans and interrogate peers to figure out what he took, and then that night his teacher gets a text, "He is okay and has been released from the hospital." The next day in class the students and teacher quietly do their work, thinking about the goodbyes they didn't get to say, but grateful that he didn't die. The teacher tries to not think about all the dormant potential sitting in this kid. He has the biggest heart. He loves making people smile. He's got brains and does well in all his classes because he works hard. He is loved by most everyone, earning himself all sorts of ridiculous nicknames. And we almost lost him, and we didn't get to say goodbye.

I feel like goodbyes are bitter but sweet. They offer us a chance to reflect on the people in our lives. My friends have shaped my character so much. I wouldn't be me without them. I feel like even just this semester the group of us has experienced a full range of human experience. Dramatic, I know, but it was a concentration of crazy ups and really crazy downs. But we grew a lot, didn't we? And we had a lot of fun! Camping out for BYU basketball games, day trips up to Salt Lake, rugby matches, lots of lacrosse, a few First Fridays in Provo, lots of good music, movies, circus tent forts in our front room, dinner parties, late night talks, snow battles, soaking up springtime rays at the park, and a big goodbye slumber party.


Maybe instead of saying goodbye, we should just say thank you. Thank you for sharing some of your life with me!