Good-byes

Throughout the preparations for our sabbatical year, the dominant emotion for Houman and I has been excitement. Sometimes it was overlaid with frustration with French bureaucracy. We were sometimes overwhelmed with how much we needed to do.

We knew that the time would come to say good-bye and had rationally recorded events in our calendars to make this happen: little good-bye parties for the girls and their friends; dinners, lunches, coffees and brunches; a planned last family dinner with just the five of us, plus all of the usual end of June events where we would usually just say good-bye for the summer. We also had the milestone of Desmond's grade 12 graduation with all the fond farewells associated with the end of an era. Big changes and lots of good-byes. What we didn’t anticipate was how hard it would be.

Note that I do not include the girls in this sentiment. They have always known that leaving would be hard and have made that point to us approximately one thousand times over the past couple of years.

In our last weeks, both Houman and I had out-of-the-blue moments where we were hit with profound sadness. Not regret. We are looking forward to what this year will bring. But we are also going to miss the things that are most important to us: friends and family. And we worry about not being there if something happens. What if we're needed? On the bright side, the good-byes also made abundantly clear how grateful we are for the people we are leaving behind. We will miss you.