Good Friends Never Say Goodbye

When my friend, Rudolf, left last month to return home to Germany, he posted a picture on Facebook that read:

He added this message to it:

Which, translated, means:

As he left to get into his car, he reminded me that it wasn’t goodbye. He’d see me soon.

With the rapidly declining health of a dear friend, the passing of 5 friends early in the year, and my daughter’s impending departure for basic training later this summer, there seem to be too many “goodbyes” these days…

Yet Jesus told us, like my friend Rudolf, that between us there are no such things as “goodbye.” Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us. We have the promise of seeing him again someday. Yet, I wonder what comfort that was to the disciples when he first was crucified. He told them he’d be back. But fear overshadowed their faith.

I must admit, it’s easy to have that happen sometimes. Way too many ugly scenarios tramp through my mind when I think of my daughter leaving. College was hard enough. The military is even harder. But she’s happy. She believes she’s fulfilling her calling. She’s looking forward to the adventure and new experiences this course of action will bring for her.

As I’ve been pondering all of this, I’m reminded of something I heard once long ago. “Every hello is just the beginning of goodbye.” You can’t have one without the other, or at least it’s easy to think that way. We lose people we love. Friends move far away. Nothing stays the same, and we mourn the loss of what we cherished (or didn’t cherish enough while we had it).

Christ wants us to remember that with him there are no goodbyes. There are just “see you laters.” Whether we meet again in this life or the next, we have his promise that we will meet again.

And while I believe that’s a great gift, I also believe that the notion of therre being a “goodbye” in our future serves its purpose too. It reminds us to hold our loved ones a little tighter, to say those unspoken words that need uttering, and to help each other be all that we were meant to be.

I was told once that we need to hold onto each other with a loosened grip. I think that’s the balance between the fear we may need to say goodbye someday and trusting that it will only be a “see you later!” If we have room In our hearts for both the fear and trust and can maintain the delicate balance beweteen the two in our everyday lives, it enables us to cherish those we love in a new and freeing way. Freeing because we’ll focus more on this moment, not the past, which can’t be changed, nor the future, which could play out in many more ways than we can imagine.