The Long Goodbye

On the night before my oldest son leaves for a year in South Korea, the family minus one son/brother gathers around the table and feasts. For the 2 previous nights we also feasted--meat and vegetables and wine, even dessert; I feel as though Bachus and his friends dropped by for a visit. As a group we discuss my son's upcoming adventure, and those who have considered such things promise to visit him. I might have mentioned before that I once spent several days in South Korea, where various incidents contributed to my being stuck onshore, unable to return to the ship that had been damaged by a strong storm. My then-friend Kent and I found a bakery where we bought a chocolate cake and a couple bottles of Coke. We took these comestibles to our hotel room where we found we had neither bottle opener for the Coke nor forks for the cake. We managed to open the bottles using the shower head in the bathroom, and we ate the cake with our dog tags....

Today, my son has finished packing and done everything he can think of to get ready. The paperwork is organized and in a handy place; the clothing is separated and folded; the loose ends around town are tied securely to other ends. I have offered all the advice I can (probably offered too much, for that matter), but he seems to have things well in hand as any good juggler must. A wonderfully gifted solver of problems, he will do fine with or without my advice, and he is right to stop listening to me when I have said too much. Too often, it seems, we parents forget that most of what we have learned, we have learned on our own, that lessons learned carry more weight than advice taken.

At some level we have been saying goodbye for many months, separating in ways we need to, getting closer in other ways. His brothers, I know, will miss him, for he has treated them all well and has connected with each in the best possible ways. I enjoy seeing how they have developed their own histories over the years, how they have created and lived their own experiences without their parents in the picture. (They have secrets among them, too, and they have been prudent enough to disclose none of them to me.) I even feel a bit of jealousy--being metaphorically landlocked for so long finds me a bit antsy. Maybe that little thing, that sense of being tethered to one place, makes saying goodbye more difficult.

He's a lucky bastard, and I think I'll tell him as much.