When Gone is Gone

This morning I read the blog of a friend who has lost both her mother and her younger brother to cancer.  I grew up with their family and the brother who passed away was a month younger than our son, Mark.  The double loss and suffering this family has endured and the way they have faced it with courage, grace and honesty is a real-life testimony, to me and others, of the peace and strength that only God can give.

As I read the following words, I really felt like they were for me as much as they were for her:

I think it's so important to be able to let go of things when it's time to say goodbye.  What's gone is gone.  You cannot hold onto something and make it a part of your life if it's not there.  Saying goodbye recognizes that something, someone was there, it really did happen, but now they have moved on which means you must move on too.   

There will always be goodbyes in life, and some much, much harder than others.  But there are also many, many hellos.  And if you look at it that way, at least for me, there are so many more hellos than goodbyes. And so many of those hellos are so much greater in their level of joy than goodbyes are in their level of sorrow.

Some goodbyes we say because we have chosen to do so.  We intentionally let something go and move on.  Some goodbyes, though, are because someone or something was leaving and there was nothing we could do but say goodbye and let them go. The same goes for hellos.  Sometimes very wonderful things come to say hello as an unexpected and happy surprise.  Then there are the hellos that we choose to say, and there is endless opportunity to say those kinds of hellos.  

Here's to knowing when to say goodbye and having the courage to do so...

and to choosing to say hello as often as we can.

Leaving our life in Kohala has felt like a death to me and I have spent the past year grieving that loss.  There was so much that led to us going there to begin with...dreams, hopes, plans...that our 2 years there just felt way too short.  We were courted, married and divorced before I even saw it coming.  And I think the most difficult part about it, for me, is that I didn't choose it.  I didn't choose to have our plans set aside, I didn't choose to leave.  It chose me and I had to go with it.  And I was okay going along with that, at the time, because I believed that our leaving was temporary.  Now here we are in Redding, a year and 2 months later, and we own a home.  We have new friends, a new flow to our life.  It's all good, but I think I've hesitated to fully embrace it because I've been holding out for returning to our life in Kohala.  I didn't want to, again, get too attached to a way of life or a circle of friends that would rip my heart out when I left.

In 12 days I will return to Kohala, but just for a short visit.  We left so suddenly last time that I didn't have a chance to say good-bye to many people.  I missed the births of 5 babies within my circle of friends there in the last year, so I am really excited to meet them all.  I know that I will have a full 9 days, a chance to re-live a past life for a little while, to enjoy being with some my favorite people, to soak up all of the aloha that I possibly can.  And it will be a time for me to say good-bye, gone is gone.  Chapter closed.  I am really not looking forward to that.  I'm thankful for the chance to visit and for the fact that I will have the friends I made there for eternity.  I just wasn't done there.  In fact, it felt like we had just begun.

It's time for a new season for our family.  This is the first time we've ever owned a home, a sure sign of beginning to put some roots down.  That is really foreign to me.  I have loved the 16+ years of adventure I've enjoyed since I left Redding for southern Cal in '95.  I've lived in every climate zone there is...from sunny SoCal to the heat of the desert, then to the snow-covered mountains and the tropics of Hawaii.  Now here we are in the valley.  Back in my hometown.  While it has felt a little like I did something wrong and got sent home, I know it has been God's saving grace for us in this season.  And I choose to trust Him.

So here's to knowing when to say goodbye and having the courage to do so...