There are instances in which we cannot predict when a relationship will end. It can catch us unaware, and knock us off balance. Often we are not ready to say farewell and feelings sit unfinished, like a knitting project from your grandmother. Glancing at the picture of the person who is gone reminds you, as if you could forget, that the ache will not go away. In that sense, the relationship does not end at all, it just hibernates.

 

But other times we have fair warning, and can prepare. I am retiring in a few months. Supporting relationships through stories and groups has been what pulled me out of bed in the morning, and kept me awake at night. It seems like the right season to let go. Costuming, too has been an engaging way to spend my days. But it is time to hand the keys to the shop to someone younger. 

 

My mother once told me that this new fangled trend to travel by airplane made it hard to hang on to her bearings. In her day, travel was slower, and a twelve hour car trip gave your heart a chance to transition from one place to another. In those days our family lived in Michigan, where my father designed cars for Ford. His job had displaced them from her hometown in Pennsylvania, and she was homesick. To appease her they would climb in the blue Volair on Friday after work with four unbuckled kids and head across Ohio. They would enjoy Saturday and Sunday with relatives, and after supper snuggle back in the car to head home. Then Dad put on a clean shirt and went to work on Monday. Being a family in the fifties, he did all the driving. My siblings and I slept through it. 

 

My twins turned twenty. For four decades I defined myself as a mom. But although that marathon launched with a clear beginning, the ending is more elusive. 

 

Transitions from one place to another, or from togetherness to separation can seem to take too long, or come too abruptly. Other times, we just wake up and find we are there.