Goodbyes

This past month has been full of hellos.  Hellos to old friends and new family.  To new ideas and new traditions.  But it's also been full of goodbyes.

A good friend lost her husband.  And yet, she was here for us as we put the wedding together and helped with flowers the day of!

My boy lost his friend.  Stormy was a comforting presence at night and kept him company whenever he spent time in his room.

MiYoung went back to Korea the Monday after the wedding.  She was the first to go and in the short time she was here, she became a part of our family, too.  My dad really misses her - she could almost match him at the dinner table and he took great delight in teasing her about where she put it all.

After the Anniversary weekend, James went back to New York.  It was our second time to gather for coffee in the diner of the airport.  And like with MiYoung, we walked James down to the security gate where there were hugs all around and watched until he disappeared through the x-ray machine.

The Korean Contingent was flying standby, and by all appearances, Wednesday was their best chance to get out and home in a timely manner.  No one counted on an earthquake and tsunami in Japan, followed by nuclear reactor issues.  They had a stopover in Japan.  Tuesday night, we gathered for Korean BBQ and to say goodbye as the departure the next day would be very early.

Again the laughter went 'round the table.  We enjoyed good food and good talk most of the evening...  and when it was over, we stood around outside and hugged and said our sad goodbyes.

As it turns out, their departure was delayed until Friday.  We didn't see much of them - they took those last few hours to do a little shopping, including for thank you gifts.  I loaned them photo albums to look at and Thursday late afternoon they came back by with the albums and a gift certificate for me to my favorite pedicure place!  There was another round of tearful hugs, and this time it was for real.  They would be leaving at 5:30am on Friday.

This morning, I got up at quarter of six to let the dog out.  I slid the door open and as the dog went through, I heard a big plane pass by overhead, winging its way to Atlanta and carrying our loved ones on their first leg of the journey back to Korea.  I quietly said goodbye again, and closed the door.