GONE

The other night I cried myself to sleep at the realization that they were gone.  I am sure I will weep my way through this as well. 

Who is gone?  They are-our precious friends, the first twelve students from IBCZ.  The students Brian helped interview, drive to the school for their first class (all 12 plus their luggage and Brian in our landrover!), the students we grew with, who became big brothers to our children, who loved us and we them.  Who we had to say goodbye to, prayed with and for, had a happy reunion with a year later, sent letters back and forth to, become friends with on facebook. 

Now they are gone, their four years of training completed and ready to graduate.  While I am happy and proud of them, it is bittersweet in a way.

Since coming home 3.5 years ago, I at least, have kept up with them, reading blogs of people who have served or visited, looking at pictures and sharing on Facebook,  sharing letters…I have kept a little bit of a connection because they were still there.  A while back I decided that I would until they graduated, then I would really need to back away.  It was always a “pipe dream” to somehow make it back once before they graduated, or for graduation, but at the cost for our family to go…well, I’d have to win the powerball and I don’t play! (okay, I do every once in awhile-like when the lottery is $370 million or more, because my chances of winning are so much better as everyone else in the country is also playing…oh well, $1 to the wildlife fund I guess.)

The other night when I read that they had left the campus it hit me.  I don’t think I was quite ready to hear that as I was thinking they’d be there a little longer since graduation isn’t until the middle of January.  All of the sudden  it felt final; they were gone, and with them, a tie to that time of our lives.  I grieved because I always pictured myself there for their last day.  I grieved for my kids, who keep asking to go back, who don’t even understand what it means that this last string is now cut.  I grieve because I guess I feel forgotten, wasted, spent, changed in a way I didn’t want to be.  This wasn’t how this was suppose to end.

And yet I suppose I should be going through this grieving, maybe I should have years ago.  Maybe it would have been easier to have wiped it all away back then, but I couldn’t.  There is still a lot unexplained, unforgotten (unforgiven?) unsatisfying, undone, unknown, unanswered.  While there will always be good memories and friendships to remember, the ache will be there too.