What did I say about "too real"?

Timestamp on this is Friday, but really written on Sunday morning, June 28. I'm sure there's a way to update the timestamp, but today won't be the day that I figure that out.

I can give this up - the back yard with the grass and dandelions that are a constant menace. In the middle of this green space we've put in a planting bed with tomatoes, zucchini, and basil all humming along.

But damn, saying goodbye to people sucks. It's so hard, something I've never liked. Friday was the amazingly wonderful woman, she & her husband truly gifts from God, who tend the kiddo after school and during summer. If I have any regrets about the past 11 years, it's that I didn't know them 11 years ago - he'd have been with them from the outset, as were a few of his friends. Instead, it's been barely a year and a half, but it's been wonderful. He'll be back for one week later this summer after his visit to the East Coast and before we head down to San Jose, and thankfully it's a week when she's here and will have her place open for kids.

Today - the young priest who was a seminarian when the kid started at the school. Given the choice of attending his ordination in Indiana or going to Disneyland when I would be attending the annual religious ed conference, the kid picked the ordination. At nine, the kid was way more interested in church and such than he is at eleven, but it was still an experience he'll remember forever. He was an altar server today too, at the last regular Mass that this priest will preside over at the parish. Definitely hard to say goodbye there, too - we don't agree on everything, but the faith and values that unite us are sufficient to let us exist with the differences, and with love and respect for one another.

I've never liked goodbyes much, and these weeks are full of 'em.

I'm repeating the mantra - it's just for a year, it's just for a year. If we were going to Mexico, it'd be a lot easier to cling to that "just for a year" statement - we'd have to return home, for immigration reasons at the very least. This time, we'll come back, and as inevitably happens, life will have moved along its course in our absence. I'm grateful for tools such as the Internet, Facebook, etc., resources that let us keep in touch with one another, but more grateful still simply for the gifts of these people - the couple who care for kids, Father Stephen - whose lives we've been privileged enough to share. God willing, we'll stay in touch as we all move through this next year.