Goodbye, See You Later...

Dad left a week ago after a four week visit and, while I know he’s coming back in March, saying goodbye was hard. It’s weird, because in many ways, as I’ve gotten older, things have gotten easier – or at least, I stress a bit less. But over the years, goodbyes seem to have done the opposite.

As a travel-loving Brit in Oz with a geophysicist husband, I’ve said a lot of goodbyes in my time. A lot. They never used to bother me. They pretty much all either prefaced a great adventure, or were just the inevitable conclusion to a lovely visit. Even when Sean left for work, pre-kids, it just meant a time to watch whatever I wanted on TV and catch up with my girlfriends. I’ve even been known, on occasion, to book into a hostel dorm using my UK passport, shave a few years off my official age and pretend to be backpacking again while he’s been away. Just to meet new people and have myself a mini adventure on the weekend before work.

Over the years though, things have certainly changed. As mum’s health declined, goodbyes got harder. After being medically escorted home to the UK in 2013 I knew she wasn’t coming back out to Australia any time soon, effectively cutting our visits frequency in half. Plus, when I did have to leave her then, our parting was always tinged with the inevitable worry that goes with knowing someone you love has a terminal illness.

Post kids, when Sean left for work overseas or interstate, there were no fun party weekends and I certainly didn’t get to watch what I wanted on TV, because TV was reserved for the sanity-saving C Beebies that enabled me to make dinner without everyone crying. Goodbyes after Abe came along meant doing all the nappies, all the get ups, and shouldering all the stresses that come with keeping a child alive 24/7.

In 2015 I took my son home to meet ‘Nana’ in person. She was a familiar face and a familiar voice thanks to all the middle of the night SKYPE conversations he was party to (and often the cause of) and he loved her from the get go. I was supposed to stay two weeks and fly back with Sean, because the idea of flying solo with a baby wasn’t all that appealing. I ended up staying 6 weeks – and that trip back wasn’t so bad. Not as bad as the goodbye anyway, because this time, I wasn’t just leaving mum behind, but I was taking her grandson away. Still, I’d be back out to see her again soon…

On Sean’s last work trip away, I was 34 weeks pregnant. For the first two weeks I was miffed that I had to do all the physical wrangling of the toddler when I wanted to be taking it easy. Picking up a dropped pen lid at that point was bad enough and I wasn’t even considering shoes with laces; getting Abe onto the change table and into a fresh nappy, or worse, into the car seat had to happen though. For the third week I was worried. Not unfoundedly as it turned out, because on that Monday my waters broke at 36 weeks and 3 days.

I had hated saying goodbye to him as he left that time, because that time I’d felt really, really alone with him gone. Mum had died the April beforehand and so there was no one just the other side of a screen, almost as if they were right there, to verify that, yep, I’d measured out the required 5ml of Nurofen or sing nursery rhymes to my son in his high chair while I washed up.

It turned out, that my last trip with Abe had been the last time I’d seen her. While the tearful airport goodbye of the trip had been our last hug, our real last goodbye had been the day before she died. On some level, we both knew that it was the end. She wasn’t especially unwell, and nothing was said out of the ordinary during the conversation, but just before we hung up, I had a vision from outside of my body. I was looking down on myself and the ipad I was talking to her on – and when she said, as she often did: ‘goodbye, give our boy a big kiss from me’ I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness, but knew at the same time, that I had to make myself smile because she needed to know I’d be OK. It was a split second, nothing more.

As we get older, it seems like goodbye doesn’t just mean see you later or see you next time. It doesn’t often mean I’m off somewhere exciting or to try something new anymore either. It means, at least for a while, you’ll be missing from my life. And so, while I know there will be night shifts and weekends and many, many hours that Sean is working, particularly as he first embarks on his new career, I’m glad that there won’t be the goodbyes that came with his old world. From here on, they really will just be, ‘see you later’s.

#Goodbye #Loss #Change #Adventure