Hard Goodbyes. Wrong Hellos.

The hardest goodbyes are the ones whispered on the fringes of fleeting memories.

I’ve said goodbye to my wife forty-two times. The woman who cooks breakfast for me every morning tells me my wife died a month and a half ago, but waking up without her beside me doesn’t make the goodbyes any easier.

Some goodbyes I want to keep locked behind my jaw, never to see the light of day.

When the woman told me my brother died a year ago, I chewed on that goodbye until the crops turned. My brother always said, even when we were knee-high, he would outlive me. I choked on that goodbye, hoping he could be right for once.

Over the years, I felt a deep goodbye swelling in my bones.

There were signs, like when my wife took my pocketknife and switched it for a potato peeler. I would rock for hours, shaping a block of wood into whatever my mind could conjure. Now, the once-smooth shavings are as jagged as my joints.

Though the goodbyes are painful, there’s nothing like the disappointing, angry pain of a wrong hello.

No matter how familiar I think the faces are, once a name is uttered, the familiarity fades and is replaced by worry.

Worry, followed by shifty eyes and words muttered just out of reach.

These hellos have a quality that clings to the air like pollen. They linger for days and hang in the open air uncomfortably.

For a month and a half, the worst wrong hello comes when I lay my head on my pillow, because I know who I’m saying hello to is just a dream.

So I’ll keep saying the hard goodbyes and the wrong hellos until I realize it will be a happy last breakfast with my daughter and a joyfully right hello to my wife on the other side.