This Party is So Fun, I Wish It Would Never End

We’ve been saying a lot of goodbyes lately. Last weekend, we drove 350 miles to help Mark’s aunt and uncle celebrate 50 years of marriage and to see relatives who came from Mississippi, California and North Dakota for the festivities. It was fun being with them, but then, after just a day and a half, we had to say goodbye.

Yesterday, we celebrated my parents 60^th wedding anniversary on the farm where I grew up. For the first time in years, all of their kids, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were together. They came from Boston, southern Brazil, Florida, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. Cousins from Ohio, Washington, Colorado, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Denmark also came for the fun. What a grand time we had – and then, we had to say goodbye until who knows when. Maybe never, since we’re so scattered. And because, sadly, nothing lasts forever.

Today, we’re leaving for London, Devon and Cornwall, and then, Romania. It’s hard to say adieu to my bed and breakfast and tea house, and the people at church (my husband is a pastor) for three long weeks. I’m already having separation anxiety. Saying goodbye, even for a short time, is difficult for me. That’s probably the reason I keep revisiting castles, kilts and stone cottages in my Wildflowers of Scotland novels. I’m just not ready to say goodbye to Rose and Ian (Wild Rose), Isabelle and Michael (Blue Belle), or Violet and Nathan (Shy Violet).

But there are much harder goodbyes to anticipate, and I dread them. A few months ago, we attended the funeral of a family friend whose son was just one year older than I am. We were close in junior high and high school, but have lost touch since he lives far from our home town. After our brief reunion,  when we were saying goodbye, he very candidly said that this was probably the last time we would see each other – with his parents both gone, he has no reason to return to the area. The finality of the moment made me sad, yet it was nothing in comparison to the goodbyes he’d said to his father early that week.

We’ve had entirely too many funerals lately. This week, another dear family friend passed away. While I believe, as a Christian, that he will be reunited with his family and loved ones again one day in heaven, it’s still a hard adjustment to go from being together in the moment, to waiting years – perhaps even decades – to be together again.

When we were dancing and having fun at Uncle Frank and Aunt Pat’s anniversary party up north, our six-year-old granddaughter said, “This party is so much fun that I wish it could go on forever.” I felt that way yesterday at my parent’s party, too.

The thing is, everything in this life is transitory. One party ends, and we say goodbye, and then we’re invited to another, and another, and new things spring up from the old. A tree that we’ve grown to love falls or is cut down, and then, a few months later, there’s a wildflower, or a new tree growing out from what’s left of the stump. We hope for the harvest in the long cold winter, and then come spring, we plant our fields again.

Knowing that something beautiful will rise from the ashes doesn’t make saying those final goodbyes easier, but it does keep us looking up, moving on, and always looking forward to the next party.

So for now – so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye. I’m winging my way to Europe, but I’ll be back before you know it. And, I promise, we’ll party until the sun goes down… or maybe I should say, until the sun rises on a new day.

 

Sherrie Hansen’s Bio:
Twenty-three years ago, Sherrie rescued a dilapidated Victorian house in northern Iowa from the bulldozer’s grips and turned it into a bed and breakfast and tea house, the Blue Belle Inn.  Sherrie has also lived in Colorado Springs, CO, Augsburg, Germany, Wheaton, IL, and Bar Harbor, Maine. She grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota. After 12 years of writing romance novels, Sherrie met and married her real-life hero, Mark Decker, a pastor. They now live in 2 different houses, 85 miles apart, and Sherrie writes on the run whenever she has a spare minute. Sherrie enjoys playing the piano, photography, traveling, and going on weekly adventures with her nieces and nephew. “Shy Violet” is Sherrie’s eighth book to be published by Second Wind Publishing.

Links:

http://www.facebook.com/SherrieHansenAuthor
https://sherriehansen.wordpress.com/
http://www.BlueBelleInn.com or http://www.BlueBelleBooks.com
https://twitter.com/SherrieHansen
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2870454.Sherrie_Hansen

https://www.pinterest.com/sherriebluebell/

Books Titles: Wildflowers of Scotland novels – Thistle Down (a prequel novella), Wild Rose, Blue Belle, Shy Violet. Night and Day, Love Notes, and the Maple Valley Trilogy – Stormy Weather, Water Lily, and Merry Go Round.