Good Night and Good Luck

Sometimes you don't know a chapter of your life had closed until years later.  You look back and realize that it was the last time you saw them alive or at least the last time you saw them.  Or you realize that you've never been back there and probably won't go back there. It was the last time you ever saw that place. And usually you realize all these things much too late to do anything about it.

This was not such an occasion. We knew that we were closing the book on West Lafayette, Indiana. After having an intimate relationship with the town for over eight years, yesterday we said goodbye.  To some extent it was good riddance,  But  how can we say that when so much of our lives have been wrapped up in that place?  For two people born and raised in Alabama and who have lived in Georgia for 36 years, who would have thought we would spend so much time in West Lafayette, Indiana? How did it even get on our map?

And unless our seven year old granddaughter attends Purdue University and we're alive to see it, I can't think of a single reason we would ever go back there.

Being there yesterday was very important. It was extraordinary!  It was important to us and to a lot of people. It was a once in a lifetime occasion for many. We wouldn't have missed it for the world. But that was yesterday. Today, one day later, there's  nothing there that we care to see or care to do. All the people we have loved there have moved on.

And we move on.

A benediction:  May God bless all of our comings and goings in West Lafayette, Indiana.  May You water the seeds of love and affection that we scattered there over these years. May they bloom and grow and feed the multitudes who remain, as we share our love in other places. Thank you for blessing all of our hellos and now we ask You to bless our goodbye.  Amen.