Flutterby™! : Saying Goodbye

In the past few months, I've had two people well-known to me and very close to my wife, die. Both were younger than me. One was a pre-Olympic athelete in bicycling and swimming, a Dartmouth grad who had just started a job as a lawyer in Aspen, CO, before slowly, over two years, losing his physical and mental capacity to a brain tumor. The other was a 23-year-old activist who lost both her parents at age 9 to AIDS, did not even have a drivers license because she believed in bicycling, and worked in several AIDS and womens' charities. She was killed instantly when run over by an armored car riding her bicycle across a college campus.

At a reception for the latter, a friend explained how she had just taught her 4-year-old daughter, when leaving someone, to always look them in the eye and from the heart wish them goodbye because you never know when that would be the last time you'll see them. It's a way of honoring the connection between your souls.