hello goodbye

previously published by me elsewhere:

I think Ferris Bueller said it well: "Life moves by pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while, you might miss it." (Thank you John Hughes!)

There was a flight today headed for paradise with a stop-over at LAX. A dear friend was on that flight, as she took an important leap in her life with the hopes she might truly find herself at the other end. Maybe a respite from the norm.

Or maybe a home. But what does that mean, really? Everyone has their own interpretations of what that entails. Some people envision Thanksgiving dinners around a big table, but other people might find it briefly on the set of a movie at 1 AM. Isn't it really just a place of comfort, and not necessarily an abode?

Throughout my life people seem to go away just when things are getting good. Many of my relationships have had to be forged across this sort of physical distance. I find it intriguing that in the same breath people can become out of sight, out of mind; and that same distance can make our hearts grow fonder.

I got a call from my brother today. He was letting me know that his mother-in-law had passed away from the debilitating condition she had been dealing with for the past year. By no means was I in the dark on what was going on in his family during this time, but the fact is I don't really know my brother, and he doesn't exactly know me. We have been light-years away from one another for so long, it's hard to know where to step when he's around.

I offered my sympathies and attempted to gauge his needs. With people I know far better, I can detect the small things, but I can't bear subtext when talking with him. I don't know whether or not he was close to his wife's mother, nor do I know if a hearty amount of animosity lurked behind every meeting. This sort of trouble with openness runs throughout my family.

There are plenty of catch phrases and movie quotes to define life's parameters, but sometimes living and watching the manner in which people enter and exit one another's life does the job just fine.