Little goodbyes
She started saying goodbye months before she left. I remember little moments frozen in time when that feeling came over me. It was a little urge to savor the moment, and pay attention. Sometimes I listened, and sometimes I didn’t. When I did listen, I was struck to stop in my tracks, and cease whatever I was doing to focus on her and the moment. I remember experiencing an eerie feeling, but explaining it away as part of letting her go. I thought the melancholy I was feeling toward Lauren was because she was growing up. I had no idea that my first instinct was correct. She was leaving, and we were slowly saying goodbye.
It was like snapshots in time, and my heart knew it before my mind did. My soul knew it too. Did hers? In the weeks prior to her death, she made phone calls and looked up old friends. She had been confirmed in her faith, and was good with God. She learned how to drive a tractor. She spent time with friends and family, and she took a lot of pictures. She lived her life like she somehow knew it was ending. She showed us that she loved us in many ways. She even spoke about death, and her wishes to be cremated. Was she unconsciously saying goodbye? Were we being prepared for the fact that she would be leaving soon and unexpectedly? Those last precious moments are permanently frozen in time, and excruciatingly painful to bear sometimes because no matter what, I always wish I had done more when I had the chance. My heart swells with sadness when I hear her asking me to watch tv or a movie with her, and I remember not taking the time because I knew we could always do it tomorrow. I remember that I fell asleep during the last movie that we watched together….if only I had known!
The pain and regret for lost moments is a brutal cross to bear. It engulfs my spirit sometimes and takes it down to the deepest pits of grief. It threatens to keep me there, and makes me feel like I deserve to remain there sometimes. I have learned to use my scars as a reminder and a deterrent. I now treat life and my loved ones very gingerly, never allowing myself to grow complacent about today, because tomorrow brings no guarantees. I have embraced faith, and stopped questioning it, because I had to. I could not make it another day without faith, and the belief that we will see each other again. Perhaps we all say goodbye to this life a little more each day. Perhaps this life is a whole series of snapshots in time, and little goodbyes to ourselves, to this world, and the people we love, in preparation for the next life.
Tara Rodney
8/6/11