Saying Good-bye Is Easy

While creating this manuscript, I’ve returned again and again to the view from the back window of our old green Chevrolet. I’ve revisited the streets where we lived, peeked into the lighted windows of old friends’ homes, and haunted old playgrounds and schoolyards. Now, as an elder watching my early life dwindling in the distance of time, I continue to watch for the next place on my life path as if I’m looking past my father’s broad shoulders and reading the highway signs.

I have learned strength, resilience, and adaptability from my early experience as an army brat. I recognize how blessed I am to have emerged from a transient childhood able to release the old, flow in the moment, and look to the future without apprehension. On days when I’m lonely, troubled, or restless, the nomad child within comes to me, and with the warm, soothing weight of her arm across my shoulders, whispers, “You are safe here. Everything is going to be all right!”

I am no longer a little girl with a military past. I’ve aged with grace and become a mature individual who observes life and people with compassion, possesses an eye for beauty, and cherishes my gift for word painting the world around me. I am grateful for my rich, creative life.

If you glimpse my nomad child in a field somewhere, meet her there, as Rumi suggests. Help her gather up the scattered pieces of her soul, and see them as dandelion seeds carried on the wind. Tell her she is free to root herself in the soil of my storyland.