We say this everyday but you never think it will be the last time you say it to someone.
My ex and I used to say "It's not good bye, it's see you later", because despite leaving the country indefinitely I knew it wasn't over between us. After I married and divorced him - I knew it was over between us.
I said good bye to a friend of nearly 20 years as he moved his family to Japan last week, and then I said good bye to an absolute LEGEND of a man that I had the pleasure of working with over the past few years at his funeral on Friday.
Funerals are strange events. And I feel like I have been to a lot in my lifetime. And if you mix up the letters you get REAL FUN. They make you think, don't they?
I have traveled a lot and found that everyone would come to my farewells but when I returned and tried to catch up with them - they were busy. Does this mean they were more excited about me leaving the country than coming back to it? We often take our friends and family for granted and people would put off catching up because they figured I'd still be around the next week. This is to help prove my point that farewells are celebrated more than arrivals or returns. You don't get nearly as big a turn out for a birth, do you?
I didn't cry at my grandfather's funeral. I was 17, in my final year of High school and he'd lived with us all my life. It was a surreal event where I felt like an observer removed from the emotions that were welling up within so many of my relatives and running down their cheeks. I remember seeing a lot of my older male relatives crying, something I had never seen them do before. I didn't cry at my Grandfather's funeral because I had watched him deteriorate over the last 6 months in a hospital bed to the point where he didn't resemble the person I knew him to be. I felt that him finally letting go of what was left of his life was a blessing. It saved him from any more pain and he would be reunited with his wife, My Grandmother, who died 14 years earlier. I may have cried at her funeral but I was 3 and not getting enough attention or a lollie or a toy would probably have been reason to cry.
My other Grandfather died a few years before that and the biggest reaction came from my overseas Aunty who hadn't lived in the same country as her family since she was 16. She howled with grief, it was hard to watch.
I put it down to the amount of time you get with a person. I believe most relationships are finite. Some get burned up fast and intense, others are drawn out over years. I'm not saying one is better than the other everyone is met for a reason some relationships just have smaller hourglasses with bigger holes.
Does this make any sense? Friends I don't see often (particularly those in other countries or cities) - I still hold dear because our hourglass gets put on hold more often, some people you see way too much of and sometimes just need a break from them. Am I right?
I got more than my fair share of time with my grandfather, both of them, compared to my other relatives and my OS aunty. My hourglass was almost empty anyway. I cried at the funeral on Friday because he was a lovely person who I would have liked to have had more time with. My hourglass still had a lot more sand in it.
"If you mourn me a little, it's too much. If you celebrate my life to the max, it's not enough."
Cheers Turps!
