Goodbyes

Since I was little I've always had a tough time with goodbyes. When I say this I mean: weekends spent at a friends lake house resulted in tears when it was time to go, an extended family trip to Cape Cod ending in a nuclear level emotional meltdown, saying "goodbye" to my college roommates was a mess, etc. I'm pretty sure I even had a hard time once when I was younger when my parents decided to get rid of a living room chair (we'd had it for a while, I'd grown attached)!

In Boston this past weekend I had the hardest goodbye yet when my family came together to celebrate the life of my grandmother (Nana). She was an amazing woman with a passion for life and family. There was so much I learned this weekend about her life from the people who have known her the longest, but something that did not need words was the love we all felt from having her in our lives.

I'm thankful we were so close and because of that I'll never forget the visits, the hugs, the kisses, the laughs, the stories (there are a lot of them), the sometimes crazy hairstyles, the smell of her lipstick, the soft skin, the way she said my name, or most importantly the LOVE she so kindly gave me.

It's amazing to me how time and distance may have separated us over the years, but that things never changed.

1986

2008