How Do I Say Goodbye?

Having my siblings in for the weekend was so significant. After my mom (who gathered us for events big and small) passed, we knew we would have to make the effort to keep getting together and celebrating. None of us worried, but life has a way of getting busy and complicated and demanding and so effort was exactly what has been needed to ensure we maintain contact and see each other in person.

My oldest brother and his wife flew up from Georgia after having just returned from Florida a few days before. My sister and her husband drove up from Virginia and brought my other brother, who had recently flown in from Beirut (traveled the longest distance acknowledgement given here) for a short visit. We made it a point to get some sibling pictures. Where’s Waldo activity: If you look closely in the the first shot, you’ll see my brother-in-law, the photographer! An afternoon of catching up with them and my oldest daughter was spent around copious amounts of food.

It was on to the Readington Brewery, one of my happy places, for an evening with friends and more family. I am so blessed and fortunate and grateful for these people in my life who have loved me, supported me, and grown with me. My favorite part is how they have gotten to know one another over the years and so this evening was as much about them getting to reconnect.

The “Brewery Office Hours,” as my daughter called it, was organized by my best friend of 36 years. MJ and I met our sophomore year of college when I was an RA and she lived just down the hall. We became instantaneous friends and spent nearly every waking minute together, either attending our education classes, walking to 7-11 for Slurpies or just hanging out in our rooms and the hall in between. We were the Dynamic Duo, though not everyone had an acquired taste for us! My suitemates found us annoying and bothersome…too loud, too curious, too much of everything. One of our professors had to pull us out into the hall and told us if we couldn’t stop talking during class he would have to separate us. Moving into a townhouse with other friends our junior and senior years, the woman who sublet to us was not amused by our antics either. We may not have been for everyone, but we were perfect for each other. We both started our teaching careers in Hillsborough, even splitting a job for a year when she was going out on maternity leave and I was coming back from one. We had 6 children between us every year for 6 straight years. We swapped maternity clothes back and forth. After staying home with our kids, we both came back to teaching at the same time and in the same position in different schools in the same district. Eventually, we got to work together in the same building for the first time and later, she became my Vice Principal. We have done life together.

The evening was full of some of my favorite people and I savored the sweetness. My oldest friends have been with me since infancy, my kindergarten group still reunites every summer, my high school and college friends were there for our figuring it out years, and I’ve befriended some amazing coworkers, neighbors, writers, and friends of friends ever since. Having adult children is a beautiful mix of parenthood and friendship. My relationships are about sustaining one another, lifting each other up, bringing levity, being sounding boards and lending a helping hand. They are the meaning and purpose in my life and I work hard at them. I nurture and cultivate them. And I am eternally grateful for that kind of love in my life.