JUST A HIPPIE GYPSY

How to say good bye

The past weeks have been some of the toughest in my life. To leave the work place I had been a member of for over seven years was harder than I imagined. Unlike leaving family, I know I have to keep in touch. It is up to me. As I gathered everyone's emails and home addressed I realized not one of them asked for my new address. Like every other place I have left, it is up to me to keep in touch, to keep it going. If I let go, its gone.

Sad but true.

During a very gloomy week, I had one ray of sunshine. I sashayed into the office on Thursday morning and my boss called to me from his office. "Guess who was in here yesterday?" Immediately I thought of the enraged Arab who threatened to kill me several years ago. Before I could come up with an incriminating answer he filled in the blank for me, "Brian!"

I couldn't have smiled wider. Then I became indignant, "What!! Why didn't he call me?"

Brian had left the clan in 2001. We kept in touch for several months but like a ding bat, I misplaced his cell phone number! Brian was on to bigger and better things in beautiful paradise-like areas only to be seen on very rare occasions. After that...nothing.

Brian is only several years older than my daughter and like a son to me. He was also my partner in crime for a long time until they (powers that be) decided to separate us.

For him to just drop in to the plant several days before I leave for good was a gift from God.

I called him on his cell and he was still in town and just getting ready to leave.

"Why didn't you call me last night!"

"Oh Mary, you know how I am when I start drinking beer!"

He had to go meet another friend at a donut shop and then he would call me.

He did. "I'm at that place." he said.

"Meadowthorpe Cafe?"

"Mary, that's scary"

"Being able to read your mind was always easy." I replied.

I love this kid and it was just wonderful to see him four years older and oh so much more mature. He has, as always, 100 things going on at once. Best of all, he has found a profession he loves and is very very good at.

It is so good to see "your children" find their path in life.