Saying Goodbye is the Hardest Part

Saying goodbye is never easy, whether you are able to prepare yourself or whether you aren't.

I've known for months that one of my students is leaving - tomorrow will be his last day at our school...and in the country, for that matter. He and his family are heading home to Australia for good. (Well, I am sure this student will be back for college, which he hopes will be Notre Dame.)

But having known this for a long time hasn't helped, especially in these last few days. After all, these last few days are the ones I believed would never come, or, at least they are the ones I didn't try to think about. And talking to his parents briefly tonight at the boys' basketball game surely didn't help either - I got all choked up. He really is a good kid, and, while I know I'll miss him, I know his classmates will miss him even more.

The students will probably be a little less chatty come Monday morning, and I'll be grateful for that, but I know that I'll still be counting up to 22 heads and looking for the missing #13 papers (even though, ironically, the student we're talking about here never could remember his name on anything). A different student will be the first one in the classroom each morning, and I'll have to find another student with whom to talk ND football.

It never fails - I've yet to get through an entire school year without "losing" a student mid-year due to any variety of circumstances including family moves, changes of school, and expulsion. It really does shake up the dynamic, and it usually affects the kiddos more than we really know.

But I pray for this student and his family. We'll be missing him very much...