On goodbyes, and a note to Aunt M

One benefit of a military life is that you get to say a lot of goodbyes.

Frequent farewells may not seem like a pleasant feature of transient living, but if you look past the sadness, parting also affords us the opportunity to tell the people and places we've grown to love just how much they mean to us.

With our move to the east coast now just two months out, we've started ticking off the final items on our southern-California bucket list and we've also made another list: A list of important goodbyes.

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The kids and I started yesterday. It was our final class at the local nature center.

Fittingly, we learned about winged insects and at the end of class, we released a painted lady butterfly into the park after having watched it grow from a caterpillar in a mesh cage in the classroom.




After class, Calvin and Lili presented our beloved teacher, Miss Linda, with a picture collage, hugs and thank-yous. She was touched, and so were we.

This may seem a little like torture -- lingering in a temporary moment of sadness instead of ripping off the Band-aid and moving on -- but over our history of copious moves, I've found that proper goodbyes are important, especially for young children. It gives value to our past and helps us to know that we're capable of making similar happiness for ourselves in the future.

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We don't always get a chance to say goodbye. That's another side effect of a transient life. Sometimes where you are is too far away from a loved one who slips away before you have a chance at closure.

We lost a dear family member yesterday, to whom we never had the chance to say a proper goodbye. Nick's Aunt M passed away, and due to her illness and our distance, we didn't have the opportunity to say how much she meant to us--at least in the way we wanted to.

If we'd been able to do that, I think it would have gone something like this:

Dear Aunt M,

You were the first person I met in my family of future in-laws.

Even though it was our first meeting, you greeted me with an uncomfortably long, squishy hug and lots of kisses. You were boisterous and crass and wonderfully welcoming. I knew right then I'd like it here in this family.

You were the kind of aunt everybody needs:

You cooked great dinners.

You told me hilariously embarrassing stories about Nicholas as a child.

You served us beer before we were 21.

You cussed like a sailor. (You told dirty jokes.)

We always left your house late in the night with plates of leftovers; our bellies full and our sides hurting from laughter.

I'll never forget, some years later, what I heard you shout at Nicholas over the phone when he told you we were pregnant with our second baby in two years:

"Nicholas, for #@$&%* sake! Leave the poor girl alone!"

You were a pistol, for sure, but I also haven't known many women as tender and sweet as you either.

Nicholas and I will celebrate a decade of marriage next month, and that weekend is laced with memories of you.

You let us stay at your house before the wedding, you cried loudest and longest of all the guests at the ceremony and you hosted our post-wedding brunch.

When we look at our wedding rings in the coming years -- the ones you secretly helped us purchase for each other -- Nicholas and I will always remember how you loved us.

Thank you for everything. We love you.

Love,

Danielle & Nicholas

Thank you, readers, for indulging this moment of humble reflection.