The First Goodbye

“May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.” Irish Blessing

It is once again the season of goodbyes. My kids are going back to school. Tonight Jon came over for a last hug before he heads to Dalhousie in the morning. Tomorrow I will drive Courtney home, her last visit to Toronto done for this summer season. Sometime next week I will say goodbye to John, Sasha, Anthony, Wen Hao and Sara though it seems I saw them so little this summer, we barely said hello. On Friday I will drive Jacob to Guelph. Away from home for another year. I am already crying.

Eventually I'm going to get better at parting. I've had enough practise. I don't know why it's still so hard. It's just so different when Jacob is away. The house isn't just quiet, it's vacant. How one person can leave such a vast void is a mystery. But when he's not here, nothing feels the same. I should like some of it. I've been tripping over five pairs of his shoes at the front door for months now. Even when I put them away in his room, they mysteriously reappear within hours. I've decided to just leave them. In a few more days they will disappear and I suspect I'll miss seeing them greet me as I walk in.

A few nights ago, a bunch of the old Bayview Glen gang went out for dinner. Merv and I were also out. When we got home there were a dozen pairs of shoes at the door. The volume of chatter from the basement was high enough that I wouldn't have been able to hear the TV on the main floor if that's what I had wanted to do. But it wasn't. I greeted the kids and then sat upstairs savouring the sound of their laughter. The whole house was smiling.