This isn’t goodbye

I hate goodbyes.

I hate leaving someone and not knowing when or if I will ever see them again. Goodbyes make me want to cry. Goodbyes do make me cry.

Since sometime in December, I have been in the process of saying goodbye to my friend.

It began with a fall. Actually, I think I’ll go back a little farther…it began with a move to a new neighbourhood.

In the summer of 2000, circumstances were such that we found ourselves moving from our home on my husband’s family farm to an acreage in a beautiful river valley closer to my husband’s new job. We did what country people do, we went out and met our new neighbours.

Living next door, was a recently widowed lady. If I said we hit it off, it would be an understatement. I have probably shared more cups of tea at her table than with anyone else I know (outside of my family). She had the most amazing garden and she was all too happy to share its bounty with us. Rows of ever-bearing strawberries were cheerfully shared, as were her abundant rhubarb plants, swiss chard, and other tasty garden delights. One day she gave me a jar of saskatoon-rhubarb fruit. “It’s for pie,” she told me, “My family doesn’t like it, but you try it, it’s delicious.” And it was. It has become a family favourite – my oldest son’s pie of choice for his birthday dessert every year.

And so it went over the years, sixteen of them since we moved in next door. It became an almost weekly ritual, our cup of English Breakfast tea and a visit. My neighbour lady became one of my dearest friends.

And then came the fall. It was something that could have, probably has happened, to almost all of us. She had just let her little dog out to do his business. She turned from the door and caught her foot on the carpet and she fell. But where I would have stumbled and caught myself or fallen and just gotten back up again, she fell to the floor, shattering bones, lots of them. We found ourselves visiting over cups of take-out tea in her hospital room instead of at her kitchen table.

The broken bones were an unwelcome addition to an already complicated diagnosis. When she finally left the hospital, it wasn’t to come home, it was to take up residence in the palliative care room at the local extended care facility.

Our visits became more precious. At the end of each visit, I would take her hand and say, “I’ll see you soon,” because I hate goodbyes.

My dear friend was born a fighter. She came into the world at a mere three and half pounds. She was “incubated” in a box placed in front of the open door of the wood-fueled oven in the kitchen. She fought her way into the world, she fought to stay in the world, and now she is fighting again.

My dear friend is struggling in some kind of in-between place, not really still in this world, but not really in the next either. She is fighting to stay with the ones she loves who surround her bedside, but I think another part of her is fighting to break the bonds that hold her here. It is a terrible thing to witness, this awful, epic battle she is fighting with herself. The end is close.

Still, I cannot bring myself to say goodbye.

Did you know that the word originally came from the phrase ‘God be with you’? That puts a different light on it, doesn’t it?

I cannot quite bring myself to say goodbye, but I can say “God be with you my dear, sweet friend. Keep the teapot handy. I’ll see you soon.”

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