A Good Finish?

It feels longer than four years since he died.  I suppose because there was more space between us, and angst and frustration so that when we last spoke, and I hung up on him, it was not a pretty finish. 

I wonder - what is a good finish? Is there a good way to say goodbye? I haven't had any of those yet so I can't say.

Maybe it’s more about what we say while we’re still together, rather than how we let go. 

He died not knowing he was eaten up inside with something so vile it had made its way through him. Maybe there’s grace in that? Maybe not knowing there’s no way to get out of what you’re in is a gift of grace, given to someone God knew could have used more of it throughout his life. 

And couldn't we all?

There are those people in my life, that if I found out today they were gone, I would know we ended well. We said what we needed to, we didn’t hold back from expressing the love but also the frustrations; we shared hopes and dreams and such, and sorrow and disappointment when that was what was on the table between us. If some of those were to slip away without any notice I think it would be okay. Or at least when I find myself wishing for one more day, one more time, it would be for something besides resolving the oceans of circumstances that separated us. 

When someone goes, and there was so much unsaid, so much that had to stay unsaid, I’m not sure it ever gets okay. Just because you all came from the same mother, and even father, doesn’t make it a family, but rather people who are related but don’t relate. 

That’s what I find myself trying to put down, what was never said. What couldn’t be. And letting it just be okay. Sometimes that just has to be enough.