The Art of Saying Goodbye

                Goodbyes are hard. They always have been and always will. Whether you've said goodbye once to your best friend or whether you said goodbye to multiple best friends, it’s still hard. Being a MK (missionary kid) does not mean goodbyes are any easier or any harder, they still suck. There’s no other way to put it.

                I was born in Texas and moved to Connecticut when I was two, we first lived in Winsted and then later in Torrington. At ten we moved to Honduras, we lived in Yamaranguila for three months. We then moved to Zambrano, we lived there for three years and then moved to Santa Lucia. We've been living in Santa Lucia for three years. When I was younger I didn't know what a goodbye really was. I was too small to remember Texas or even Winsted. Torrington was my first goodbye, I had to say goodbye to my BFFM (Best Friend Forever More), my family, church, and all other friends. I wasn't moving to another town either, I was moving to another country, I thought I would never see or talk to any of them again. Honduras is a Third World Country and is now labeled the Most Dangerous Country in the world by the UN because of the murder rates. But I didn't cry. I said goodbye as my friends and family cried, I didn't cry because I was too excited! Then a week later, the realization hit me, I was no longer in the comforts of the USA and I didn't know when I would see the people I loved again. I cried. Then three months later we were asked to leave Yamaranguila and I cried again. I’m not an emotional person either but we had just moved to a whole new place and we had three weeks to find a new place to live in this country that’s about the size of Tennessee. I was scared. We prayed and cried together as a family and then started to look for another place to live.

           Our next destination was Zambrano. We met so many great people, made amazing friends, and helped out with all sorts of different things. My two sisters and I would walk down the road and we would help out at a home for mothers who have babies at really young ages, the youngest was ten when she was pregnant and I was older than her. It was a great experience working there. We would go there almost every day. We played with the seven babies that were there while the moms either cleaned or did school work or even took a break. One day they left us alone with seven babies and went down the road to a pulperia (little store) to get something to eat, they trusted us that much! We translated for teams, we went to a Spanish church and played with the kids there, we helped build for the poorer Hondurans, and we made some good friends with the Hondurans as well. I also had the privilege of meeting another MK who became one of my best friends. We had adventures, playing spies, swimming in the river, dodging barbed wire, eating wild berries and other fruits; we roamed the wonderful mountain villages of San Francisco and Las Botijas.

 During the time that we lived in Zambrano my dad got a job at an International American School in Tegucigalpa, the capital city about an hour away from us. My younger sister went with my dad and attended that school while me and my other younger sister were home schooled. Then the second year my dad was teaching we had the option of going to that same school. This meant another goodbye though. We wouldn't be able to see the babies as much, we might be able to see them once a week or less. Also, I wouldn't get to see my best friend as much, only on vacations since she lived thirty minutes higher in the mountains and later moved an hour up the mountain. But nonetheless we went to the school and I met some amazing people. But once I started attending that school, the goodbyes increased. This was because the kids that go there have parents whose work changes location every two years or so. Not everyone left but a lot of my closest friends did. That first year I had to say goodbye to a close friend from Germany. That same year we then moved to Santa Lucia which meant we would not be able to see the babies at all and I would rarely see my best friend. But she was two hours away; I still got to see her.  Then half way through the second year I had to say goodbye to one of my closest friends originally from El Salvador, she was moving to the USA and later to Rwanda. At the end of that same year one of my close friends from Germany moved back to Germany. During this time I started going to an English speaking church in Tegucigalpa, we were only twenty minutes away from the city, and I met another MK who became one of my best friends as well. I knew her for a year and her family moved back to the USA. She moved exactly two days after my birthday, I cried on my birthday, the day after my birthday, and then finally the day they left. We were really close, and I only knew her for a year. That goodbye sucked. Shortly after, my best friend who I knew in Zambrano moved back to the USA, and that goodbye sucked a lot too. I had known her the longest in Honduras and I was going to lose her. And that same year, which was my third year at the school, my close friend from Japan moved back to Japan. It was a school year full of goodbyes. My fourth year at the school was great, no one was leaving, or so I thought. No one from the school was leaving instead my closest guy friend was moving along with his sister, who was one of my close friends too, to Germany.

This year will be my final year of school and my final year in Honduras. I will have to say goodbye to one of my best friends from Honduras as we go off to college. Along with her, I’ll have to say goodbye to the rest of my class, who are all like family to me. I’ll have to say goodbye to my youth group and church. I’ll have to say goodbye to my family and my beautiful country. I have to go back to the USA to the college God calls me to go to. It’ll be the hardest goodbye I've ever had. But just because it will be the hardest doesn't mean I should pull away from the people I love. It doesn't mean I’ll change in order to not feel pain when we graduate. I’ll still be me, like I always have. Goodbyes suck so much. I have no other way to describe them. No matter how many goodbyes I've had to say, even to the people I am closest to, I am not used to saying goodbye. I don’t think I ever will.

So, the art of saying goodbye is not a pretty painting. There is no way to make a goodbye hurt any less. I've learned that saying goodbye is not always for forever. I've seen my three best friends who are in the USA (Torrington, Zambrano, and Santa Lucia), and I've got this last year with my fourth best friend (Honduras). My close friends that have moved, I've seen both girls who moved to Germany and the girl who moved to Rwanda. I've got connections in several different countries due to my friendships. I plan on seeing them again in this world. Hopefully I’ll see them in Heaven as well but some of them when I knew them weren't Christians. I’m praying for them and I love them no matter what. Goodbyes hurt but the pain doesn't last forever.

Goodbye, until next time!