My daughter opens the door, and she slips in quietly. I just came to say goodbye. Her departure comes as no surprise to us, for from the beginning of our friendship with this beautiful, sensitive teen-ager, we had known she would not stay long. Her family has moved all over the country, pulling up roots nearly every year to follow her mother's career. What surprises us is simply that she has the strength to say goodbye.
Farewells take their toll after a while.
So much easier to just slip away. In a rush She knows that her mother wants her to hurry, that the moving van is there. So, of course, she doesn't hurry at all. She sits down in our kitchen, and tells us all the things she had not felt the urgency to say before. This time, she is not leaving until someone knows.