"La Revedere" A Reflection on Saying Goodbye

“Antiquated goodbye formulations, such as “fare- well” or even the older, ‘fare thee well’ reveal that at the heart, goodbyes are a blessing.”

I wish I could show you Lupeni right now. The sky is bursting with vibrant displays of deep pinks, dark reds, and a bluish purple tint that extend into the horizon. This light is illuminating everything: the frost covered trees, the dark colored chimneys, the faces of the people that walk past our apartment block. It is 7 am on my last day in Lupeni. I couldn’t sleep anymore; my heart is heavy knowing that tomorrow morning will be the last day that I take in the fresh mountain air, the dogs with their big eyes begging for food and attention, the sound of cars honking and zooming past you, the man holes that I almost always fall in, and the sight of a people and a place that I have grown to love. So this is it… it’s time to say goodbye. Saying goodbye is always hard. It forces your heart to expand in a way that causes pain, but makes it more pliable. It forces you to separate with a people or a place that holds a very significance in your life. Goodbye marks the moment when being “with” a place/people beings to move into being apart. It’s been a nearly a week and a half living in this “funeral like” state. A time of wide eyed excitement and enthusiasm about the place that I have called home for the last couple of months and a time of tears, dreading the day that I must let it go and say my final goodbye. So today it begins. A day spent capturing the final beauty of a place and a people by relishing in the moments of a day.

I can’t get the letter that my host dad gave me stuck out of my head. A couple of weeks ago, I asked him to write his story. I told him that I didn’t want to lose that part of my experience and I felt that his story held great significance. Who would have thought that the ending of his story would have touched me in the way that it did. The ending of his story was the time that I spent with them. He recounted the memories and moments that we shared as well as his difficulties that took place within the first week. He wrote about how “today” is going to be a hard day but that our goodbye was never final because I was forever apart of them now. My eyes are swelling and tears are finding themselves cuddled in the crevices of my face as I write this. Goodbye is painful but it’s not permanent. Goodbye is itself a blessing. So today I make my final walk over to my host family’s house with my little hand written letter to say goodbye to a people that have loved me, cared for me, and touched my heart in a special way. I will embrace the pain in this because it means that there really was love there. In the words of Walter Brueggemann “Only anguish leads to life, only grieving leads to joy, and only embraced endings permit new beginnings." I will make my final walk to Café Mago and order my last chocolate cake, taking the smallest bites and enjoying each moment. I will put my last 50 cent coin into the coffee machines to get my last cup of poorly made instant coffee and find a place nestled on a bench in the children’s park and watch the excitement of the children as they dart their way down the windy yellow slide. I will order my last deep fried langosi filled with warm chocolate filling with my friends for the last time. For now it is time to say “goodbye”.

I say this with an achy heart Lupeni. “La Revedere,” to a place that has grown me, shared with me, and loved me into who I am leaving you as today. You are a place of paradox but there is beauty in you. Thank you Lupeni for your people and your potential, I pray you pursue your potential and give your people a chance to inspire you.

With great love,

Samantha