Saying Goodbye

I’ve never been good at saying good bye. The first sad so-long I remember happened when I was about six-years-old. Mom and Dad took me to Nagymama and Nagypapa’s* house to spend the weekend (that's the whole crew, in the photo to the right, in their living room; my nagymama is about to ash on my little brother's head!). I remember watching the family station wagon roll back down the driveway away from where I was standing. Tears streamed out of my eyes. I think I ran into the house and hid somewhere for a period of time, until I was comfortable enough to show my face again. (No, my sadness had nothing to do with my grandmother's cigarettes.) I know I had fun the rest of that weekend.

The next time I remember being sad to say good bye to someone was in the third grade. My best friend was Linda Lovelace and we had been attached, BFFs, both with a love of horses, until my parents sold our farm in Unionville to move to another farm in Rapidan. That meant starting in the fourth grade, I would be attending Orange Elementary School for two years, instead of Lightfoot Elementary, where Linda would be. We’d reunite again in the sixth grade, at the Middle School – but I was facing a two-year, 30-mile separation from my best friend and I didn’t like it.

You would think that over time, I would have adapted to the notion that change happens, and it can be (and usually is) a good thing. But even when I graduated from college, was hired in my first “real” job**, and it was time for me to say good bye to the women who I worked with at the mall, I became a sniffling, snotty mess. Heck no, I didn’t want to work in that job anymore (as much as I did enjoy the store discount, it challenged my patience with the general public). But those women had become my surrogate aunties. British Deb was super cool and protective over me. Marie Christine had a thick French accent, and even though she could be hard on me at times, I know she loved me nearly as much she did her own daughter.

So that day, as I gave my last hugs to these women, I was overcome with emotion. I can’t explain it. I got that lump in my throat. It’s caused by the Vagus Nerve, I know that much; I just don’t know why I can’t control it. And I hate it: my face contorts, my eyes get puffy, my nose fills up, and I find it almost impossible to swallow. And for what? Those tears don’t do any good. They don’t help anyone. If anything, me crying makes others feel badly, and that certainly isn’t my intention. And it definitely isn’t a pretty sight to behold.

Needless to say, because life is how it is, I just had to say good bye to another very special person. The reasons are complicated. As much as I might hate to admit it, “employment” is a universal necessity, and “international borders” can’t be ignored. We have promised to reunite and I’m certain that we will, but we don’t know exactly when nor where.

So as his impending departure neared, my vagus nerve got quite a workout. It would flex unpredictably and suddenly, the burn in my throat and my eyes taking over instantaneously. It could be triggered by the voice of a friend coming to wish Gary well. It could be triggered by a kind look from the one going away. It could be triggered by a fleeting thought about our time together.

My senses went into hypermode, clinging to every little detail. Have I kissed his shoulder too many times in the last three minutes? Maybe I should ease up. If he says he doesn’t want a drink right now, maybe he really doesn’t. And I swear I could smell his sadness when he entered the room. Well, maybe it was really the crease in his cheek that gave away his emotion, or his posture. But I know I could sense it even before I saw him. (Just ask the Institute of HeartMath; they would believe that statement.)

I actually held up ok when the final moment came to give a hug and kiss goodbye. He checked into his flight at Dulles. We grabbed a bite to eat and laughed at his former boss as he completed his exit interview online, on his smartphone. We snapped a few photos of us together.

Then I made the mistake of tucking a card into his carry-on bag before he entered security. I didn’t sense it coming, but bam: my face crumbled and my eyes burned. Tears fell. In short, I failed to keep him from feeling badly.

I know we’ll see each other again, just like Linda and I reunited in the sixth grade. We’re going to be moving on to a better, more fantastic place, just as I did when I left my job at the mall after college. And it’s not as though he’s dropping completely out of my life (thank heavens for those smartphones).

But for some reason, my little vagus nerve just doesn’t know how compute those worldly facts when it comes to saying “Cheerio.” Maybe HeartMath can work on a fix for that problem. You know as they say, "hope springs eternal"....as does my vagus nerve for now.


*That’s "grandma" and "grandpa" in Hungarian.
**My stint as a Financial Advisor for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter definitely needs to be a post here in the near future.