Until The Flight Is Over

I’ve said goodbye many times. Country to country. In days when goodbye meant goodbye.

I once read in a book that when children move, parents should pay particular attention to granting the children their special goodbyes.

We always threw a fairwell party on the day of our departure. And we’d cry the entire flight.

We said to the friends we left behind that we’d be back. It was a lie every time. Like saying the deceased is in a peaceful place now.

Requiem. “It isn’t the goodbye people are afraid of,” says an actor, “it’s what happens after the goodbye.”

My best friend left without a warning. I liked thinking she wasn’t capable of saying goodbye because she wasn’t good with words. But now I know. I know that she wasn’t capable of what happens after goodbye.

I am a child, still waiting for my special goodbye. Maybe I can then start crying. Until the flight is over.