The hard goodbyes

Our relationship is deep. It’s complicated. It’s glorious and painful. From the first moment and never stopping.

Hellos are easy. Middles can be bumpy. But from the first one, our goodbyes have been the hardest.

1996

I was 18 and headed to college and I could NOT WAIT to get the hell out of dodge. 

Dodge being El Paso, naturally.

 I remember one of the biggest fights we ever had happened two nights before I left for college. I stood out on the street with two of my girlfriends as they were getting ready to leave for school and you kept coming outside, demanding that I “finish it up” and come back in. 

I was furious with you. I think I told you I couldn’t wait to say our own goodbye so I could finally be my own person.

That day came, and naturally, it went nothing like I thought it would. 

We spent two days driving the 14 hours from El Paso to College Station. We stayed the night in Austin where we ate at Chuy’s, an old haunt from my childhood when the three of us, you , Gary and I, lived in Austin. 

The panic started there. Suddenly, this goodbye that couldn’t come fast enough was on the horizon and as we sat on that patio listening to mariachi music and eating those fish tacos, my heart started racing. I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t want you to leave me. Why was I in such a rush for the sweetest chapter of my life to close and the new and scary one to start?

That next day, we arrived in College Station and I did my best to put on a chipper smile and you did the same. We rushed to say goodbye as that upperclassmen in the ROTC uniform came and hauled my footlocker away and there it was. 

We had less than a minute to say everything we had to say and neither of us could. 

You struggled not to cry and I had tears running down my face and couldn’t talk. It wasn’t a poetic goodbye. But it was brutal and beautiful and so clear that I was losing so much in this new chapter. Sure, I’d gain something new and maybe bigger and better in our relationship eventually, but I was losing something that I hadn’t quite seen the value of until that moment. 

I never told you that I watched you drive the car away and broke down in the restroom shortly after.

 I had to pull myself together because there was a whole cadre of cadets waiting to scream at me and baptize me by fire into the ROTC program, but their shouting was hollow and muted and underwater compared to my broken heart. I never told you how much that goodbye hurt.

1999

On the eve of me leaving for the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School,  I was packing for six weeks in Quantico and you were packing your room for a move to Aztec, New Mexico. 

We’d lived together for two years as roommates in College Station at that point (see? I told you something bigger and better was coming) and in the morning, I’d be on a flight east. By the time I came back, your half of our shared house would be empty and you would be out west. 

We went out to eat at your favorite restaurant that night, the Grapevine, and we had sangria and we talked about our favorite memories together in that college town. The good times. The bad times. The stupid toxic boyfriend you warned me about, the stupid toxic job I warned you about.  In those two years as roommates, we’d had a chance for our relationship to morph out of mother/daughter into a sometimes-tumultuous but always entertaining friendship.

For the first time, we were on equal footing and we found that we shared just about as much in common as we had differences…but that was okay.

When my ride arrived at 6 a.m. the next morning, the choked throats and blurry eyes let us know that we were closing yet another chapter and it hurt. A lot. 

We were truly moving in opposite directions and I worried that without you RIGHT there, I’d be lost. I wasn’t ready to be lost.

2004

We shared a house while Dominic’s father had been stationed in Alaska. You initially moved to El Paso when my pregnancy was in crisis and Matthew was far away. 

We lived in that great stone house in central El Paso where we watched The Bonnie Show every Friday night on ABC together and went through the entire Sex and the City DVD collection. I remember your room and bathroom better than I remember my own for some reason. 

And when the time came for us to clean up the house and for me to move to Alaska with my son to reunite with his father, I remember our last night so vividly.

After hours of scrubbing down the floors in that front room, we stayed at the Budgetel on the west side and went to eat at the Cracker Barrel. We’d just seen a Jane Austen movie that afternoon and I wanted time to stop moving. 

Of course I was excited about the adventure ahead, but I remember clearly wishing I could exist in two realities at once--one where my life moved on like it had to, thousands of miles away from you, and one where we could go on sharing movie dates and a friendship that comes once in a lifetime, forged by plenty of fights, lots of shared victories and love. Lots of love.  

We watched the movie “Ray” that night in the hotel room and I remember praying for time to slow down. Dominic slept in a pack’n’play between our beds and the little punk refused to sleep, instead standing up and dancing along to the Ray Charles music and you loved every second of it because while I’d once been your everything, Dominic was your universe and you his. This goodbye, I remember more than others because it was likely the last time we would live in the same orbit. 

How sorry I am that this turned out to be true.

2016

You blew into Vermont on a cloud of ribbons and glitter and brought with you a birthday party for the girls worthy of its own reality television show. 

There were ponies. Gnomes. Fairies. Friends. Loved ones. Cupcakes. The girls remember it all and remember you. I have a picture of you, Dominic and I sitting with gnome beards and pointy red hats that I cherish. Andrew ate most of the cupcakes and you wouldn’t let me be mad at him because he was your angel.

When it was time to blow back out of town, Cerena packed the car in our driveway and as I helped you in, you squeezed my neck with that ridiculous upper body strength of yours and didn’t let go right away. You’d lost your mom five months earlier and I think leaving left you breathless. You told me you loved me, I told you the same  and you said, “until next time.”

I wasn’t prepared for the fact that there wasn’t going to be a next time.

Today

And now, this.

This one will be the toughest. 

Time moved on. Your grandson is staring down 18 years, the very same age that our hard goodbyes began and now here we are. The hardest goodbye, thousands of miles apart.

If you could hear me, I would say this:

Our goodbyes were never easy, but it was only because in so many ways, you were inextricably a part of me and me a part of you. 

We were yin and yang for so many years, fire and water.

A Leo child and a Scorpio parent, destined by all the astrology books to be a troubled relationship, but along with our troubles we had one hell of a time. We could road trip like no other, me reading the atlas (not always correctly, mind you) and you navigating the terrain.

By adulthood, we were Thelma and Louise. Laughing until our sides hurt and our cheeks were lined with happy tear tracks.

(I’m sure you were Louise to a lot of people, honestly, and I’m okay sharing. You moved a lot in life and I’m certain it’s not just me who struggled with the hard goodbyes when it comes to you.)

In the last few years, you traveled less. In these last few months, you communicate less, though you’re still there with your jokes and your middle fingers for your hospice nurse. 

But time isn’t our friend in this case. There’s no pretty way to say that and there’s no easy way to let that settle into my bones and through my heart. Time isn’t our friend right now.

With no Louise, it’s sometimes hard to imagine who will help navigate the turbulent times in life without your outright bravery, your laugh, or your goddamn generous spirit. Do I remember enough of your advice? Did I take enough notes along the way so that when you’re gone, I’ll remember to look out for my loved ones the way you always looked out for me? Do I remember what you’d say to me, each and every time I was certain I’d fucked my life up beyond repair? You were my biggest critic sometimes, but with that came my biggest cheerleader and never ending supporter. A patient ear. A sharp tongue. You knew what I needed in those hardest moments.

I think about all of our goodbyes and understand what’s coming. But I’m not ready.

I’m not ready.