Today was the last in a series of good byes, I hope. Our tenants, who became good friends, accepted a job in Florida so we packed them up Tuesday night and watched them drive off a short time ago. My buddy Dave & I met every Tuesday morning at the coffee shop to discuss faith and politics....and their interface in our lives.
Just a few weeks ago I helped pack up some other friends who left for Bloomington. The up side is that that's not such a long way away....and as my son pointed out, near both McCormick's Creek and Brown County State Parks.
And a few weeks before that we said our good byes to friends who had been studying with Wycliffe Bible Translators, being sent to the Solomon Islands.....for like three years! They are planning on living in leaf huts with no electicity and plubming. He described a bag that was in their emergency supplies given to them that was in case they fell out of their boat between islands...they were to zip themselves up in it and it made you look like a log and not shark bait.
And just days before they left, I had to say good bye to another buddy who left Michigan to find work in Florida. The crappy thing is that we had just reconnected after 15 years! They're in Sarasota, where my seahorse raising cousin is also located-which may demand a return trip to Florida so that we can visit all of these transplanted Midwesterners.
And we've said good bye to two of our 20x guys....one left for Kansas City to be part of the International House of Prayer (he likes to call it IHOP), and the other left to spend 2 years in Ghana with the Peace Corps. That's so cool I can say I know someone in the Peace Corps.
As I was explaining to our new tenants, who are also friends, who is who around the neighborhood I realized that for only having lived here just over 10 years.....we're some of the longest-standing members of our corner of the world. Are we really that mobile these days that it's easy to be uprooted? Do we ever even put roots down anymore?
After all the moving, and from previous moving experiences, I am committed even more now that ever to stay put. If we ever physically move-everything in the house stays. Of course, if it's just a little cabin in the woods....most of our stuff won't fit anyway.
One bit of good news is that regardless of the emigrating Hoosiers we know....at least one Hoosier is returning. An old friend is moving back from the west coast to pastor a Lutheran church in Camden (I think). And I'm looking forward to getting back in touch.
Hey, we're going to miss you guys!
2 comments:
Good-byes! I’ve had my share of them in my ninety years. Both the good-byes of moving away myself or some one else moving away, or the semi-permanent good-bye of someone going on before. When my late wife and mother of my children died on Mother’s Day 1991, about a week later I got awake early one morning with an old song going through my head, Does Jesus Care? Verse 2 or 3 (I think verse 3) goes, “Does Jesus care when I’ve said Good-bye, To the dearest on earth to me, And my sad heart aches, ‘Till it nearly breaks, O say, does my Savior see?” I was sitting up in bed singing it out loud. I had to find an old church hymnal to find the words. As I sat there in bed singing I stopped after “when I’ve said good-bye to the dearest on earth to me” and said out loud, “But, Lord I didn’t have a chance to say good-bye.” And right there in bed I Said “Good-bye Dorcas. Good-bye Darling. Good-bye Sweetheart. I loved you. I love you. I’ll see you in “The Morning” (that is the resurrection morning.) God is good. He provided another Love, another Sweetheart. My present wife and I have been married sixteen plus years. I’ll never forget Dorcas so long as I have memory. And whether it’s Good-bye down here, or Well Done up, there, I’m enjoying life and my Lord.
Father “C”
Father C-
I can't imagine the loss, but our good byes are temporal as you know. They key as you pointed out is to enjoy life and the people we are with as the Lord gives us each day to do so.
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