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 Yesterday was my last day working in the bookstore…

a bittersweet moment for me….

as Deborah and I prepare to move from Florida to NC.

As I walked away for the last time…I turned around to look

and think about all the friends and memories 

I’ve made among those books.

I thought about all the moments I know I’ll never forget…

all the amazing people I have worked with…

all the wonderful strangers I have met.

The wide diversity of people and families who walked through our front doors…

looking for books about politics, humor, fiction…music, sports and dinosaurs.

How from the moment I walked in…until yesterday…the years have seemed to fly

but there is one thing I learned while in the store:

I don’t have to say goodbye.

It was in a book about the Cherokee Indians…that one day caught my eye

where I learned how the Cherokee language has no word for goodbye.

There are no goodbyes when someone leaves…but there is a moment when…

they say Donadagohvi to each other…

which means…until we meet again.

Because there is great comfort believing…friends will again be seen

no matter how long the interlude…no matter how much time between.

I love that concept…no farewell statement when one decides to fly

no adios, no swan song…no need to say goodbye. 

As Deborah and I turn the page on our next chapter…

I’ve reached that moment when

I say to the bookstore and all the friends I’ve made…until we meet again.

So Donadagohvi everyone…until we meet once more…

How wonderfully appropriate I learned this word…

while working in the store.

Life is unpredictable, often mysterious and mind-bending

as such we don’t often get the chance to write our perfect ending:

They met when they were eight years old and became fast and life-long friends.

Now, both in their 80’s, one of those lives was about to end. 

One in hospice…eyes closed…the other teary-eyed.

One is barely breathing…the other is seated by her side.

determined not to let her friend go…not to let her die

before these two old friends have the chance to say good-bye.

So, seated at her bedside…hoping her friend could hear

she whispers to her all the memories they’ve shared throughout the years.

Memories from as far back as the day they met in school…

memories when life was joyous and friendly…

memories when life was cruel.

She’s not sure how long she sat there sharing memories of all their years…

all their miles…

and call it wishful thinking but along the way 

she thought she saw her old friend smile.

And though it may not have been the perfect ending…

she smiled as she began to cry…

knowing for these two life-long friends…

it was the perfect way to say good-bye.

We experienced what, for us, was a bittersweet moment yesterday

at a party for a friend of ours who is about to move away.

Happy for her as she moves back to Baltimore to be a grandma…

but what brings tears to our eyes…

is that she has become a good friend and we’re not ready to say goodbye.

We have shared some happy memories…but we feel a little unprepared….

to deal with the emptiness of the memories we know we could have shared.

We want her to know how happy we are for her

without revealing the endless reasons why…. 

we will begin to miss her the moment we say goodbye.

And then we realized…there is no reason why…

No reason we could think of…why we have to say goodbye.

Knowing once you love someone…even when you’re apart 

you carry paintings of them in your memory…

and pieces of them in your heart.

And so…with no goodbye, no final farewell…

no au revoir…no amen

we gave her a smile and a hug then said…until we meet again.

Leaving the door open…as she’s about to go…

for the next time we will see her…

the next time we say Hello!