saying good-bye

Tonight after dinner, my daughter Robyn and I headed to the subway, she to go to her place and I to mine. At the bottom of the stairs, my train was waiting and, when I hesitated for a minute, she cheerfully said, “Get on your train, Momma!” and so without much ado, I hopped on, blew her a kiss, and the doors closed. I stood at the window for a minute and watched her walk down the platform as my train pulled away and then it picked up speed until she was out of sight.

I was filled with bittersweet wonder at the moment, so much like life. And death. I should be so lucky that there will be that moment of mild surprise and then, quite cheerfully, she will remind me that it’s okay to go, we will blow each other a kiss and I will head for a new place, one that she won’t be headed to for awhile. Already there are intimations of my mortality in the soft flesh of my upper arm, the distance at which I hold the page to read it, the tiny moan in my joints when I rise from a long sitting spell. And soon, my train will pull up and I’ll think, “Oh, it’s really time to go? But wait, I think I have more to say!” But I’ll know with that swift sure knowing that it’s my train and I’ll hop on and head off.

I used to terrify myself with the thought that there is coming a day when one will be taken and other left. One hops on a train. The other stays behind for awhile. This is the way life is. Oddly comforting, I reckon. And not a bad reminder to enjoy what we have and remember to live by what we value.