Goodbye Girl

There were many little children in the cafe this morning eating toast on mother's or father's lap, spilling milk, talking, pointing with sticky fingers at the pink topped chocolate cup cakes. One little boy about three years old sat happily in daddy's lap moving his hips in song, poking at the pads of butter on daddy's toast, laughing uproariously at the puppy outside. Moments later he was in tears, utterly inconsolable, frustrated, over blown by life (who among us don't have these moments still!)

I remembered having "one of those" little ones whom I could comfort with just the sound of my voice, my hand on her belly, her head on my chest. Effortlessly, it seemed, and completely, I could comfort the deepest hurts with just my body months before she uttered her first word.

A parent's bond with her child is most profound; one that I feel even today as mine takes the public bus home from school, can be left alone(!) in the house, can make her own dinner. She walks away from me now, decisively, angrily, in hurt, joy, or frustration. My body is no longer a solace for her pain.

I am penetrated by her moods. I still want to hold and see her every day, need to hear her voice to know she is okay. And so it is also for my own mother even as I approach 50 and she an even older age. So it was for my grandfather who at 94 could still think of my mother as a child, the one he needed to care for and would stand by even as his own hands could not longer hold a spoon steady.

I imagine him thinking, "I have lived almost thirty years more than you, held you in my arms before you could walk, slapped you when you smoked cigarettes, walked you down the aisle, held you while you held your own baby daughter. How can I ever say goodbye to you?"

"How do I say goodbye?" I asked a friend when my own father was dying, "I don't know how to do this."

"Tell him you love him, that you will be okay, that he can rest now."

And I did. These words and others came effortless and unbidden. I imagined my father knowing what I was saying even if I couldn't tell for sure by looking into his wandering eyes. I thanked him for bringing me into this world, caring for me in his own strange and quirky way, helping me to grow strong when such lessons were not ready made for girls. My words, I imagine, comforted him with the knowing that he had done his job the best he could, that I would be okay, that he would always be my dad, that he could rest now and find a way to say goodbye.