Monday, May 19, 2014

No, it doesn't

I was leaning on the railing of deck 8 yesterday looking down at the dock.   A crowd of Mercy Shippers had gathered to say goodbye to a departing crew member; hugs all around and arms waving until the land cruiser was no longer in sight (probably a fair number of leaky eyes as well but I was too far away to be certain).  A crew member leaning on the railing just a few feet down stirred me from my reverie.  He had arrived a couple of weeks ago he said and asked how long I had been on the ship for. 

“Seven years”, I replied. 

“Does it get any easier”, he inquired, “saying goodbye to people?”

“No.  No, it doesn’t”, was my immediate and definitive reply.

Xavier ran up at that moment, "Daaaaaad, you said you'd take me inside" - so I did.  Had our conversation continued I’m sure I would have told the new guy about how it is still worth it to develop relationships and touched on a number of the joys of living in this community, and those things are true.  But the conversation didn’t continue and I’ve been mulling over my knee-jerk, unfiltered response to him: “No.  No it doesn’t”. 

Saying goodbye becomes familiar.  You learn to accept it.  Perhaps to a degree you even become calloused to it.  Some simply stop doing it all together, avoiding goodbye parties and send-offs on the dock.  Others regrettably choose to not build relationships because it hurts less to say goodbye to those you don’t really know.

But it doesn’t get any easier.  Not even a little bit. 

Already in the past few weeks some friends and good acquaintances have left.  In the coming days and weeks some best friends are leaving.  And my heart hurts.  If I think about it too much my throat gets tight and my eyes get shiny.  I’m not angry.  I don’t feel abandoned or not cared about.  I rejoice in their decisions to follow God’s call for the next season of their lives.  They will go with my blessing and love, and with Dara’s as well. 


I write these words as a means of expressing how much they mean to me – to us – and also to strip the candy-coating off of saying goodbye.  It sucks.  That doesn’t mean that it’s bad, or that we should avoid it, or that relationships aren’t worth it.  But it still sucks.  And no, it doesn’t get any easier.

2 comments:

  1. My eyes get shiny thinking about it and I'm not even there anymore. It's the one thing I've never been able to do so I have to do it in very small doses. And like you said, I tend to hold back from deep relationships because of it. Take care Peter. Greet Dara for me. ��

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  2. Good morning, how are you?

    My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.

    I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.

    For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
    Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Congo? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Congo in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:

    Emilio Fernandez Esteban
    Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
    28902 Getafe (Madrid)
    Spain

    If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.

    Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.

    Yours Sincerely

    Emilio Fernandez

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