You Never See Them Coming

*free photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

How do you learn how to say goodbye when they're different every time? There's the stretched out goodbye. Watching until you can no longer see the waving hand, or seeing 86-year-old Baba run to the other side of the bus station to see you one last time. Other times it’s a missed goodbye, like Grandpa getting to the departure gate too late, or your whisper-shout not being heard in the hall.  And then there’s the incomplete goodbye, when you put off writing that last letter until it was too late to send, or when you were too shy to go back to the kitchen for one last hug. And then the indefinite goodbye when soon miles of land or sea will separate you, and every word or handshake might be “last.” They're all different; they’re all the same. Like the unexpected knob at the end of the banister they make you bleary-eyed and somehow you never see them coming.