Memory Lane and Friend Good-byes

A few years ago,  I took a little trip by myself to get away from a lot of stress I was having in a new job. I was able to stay with a friend's parents most of the time and did a little non-tourist type traveling around the south of France, Spain and Andorra.

It was slightly before spring and so everything was on the verge of being beautiful - you know what I mean?

We went to restaurants where the regulars went, watched old men play boules in the local green spaces, saw people from near and far bring jugs to fill with holy water at Lourdes,  visited old farmhouses (over 300 years old) with very old people (100+ year olds), drove through the Pyrenees, dodged wild boars on the winding countryside roads and ate some pretty decent bread. (-;

All through the trip, a little dog named Tiny traveled with me. And, though the picture is up close, she really was tiny.  She had to sit by me, follow me, and perform tricks for me. She ate what the family ate for dinner on an actual human plate which further displayed the fine tastes of the French culture and French dogs. Ha.

On a regular basis, she would run to catch a knotted up rag that I would throw down the hallway to her, dash back to me and lay the rag at my feet followed by my throwing it down the hall again - you know the drill.

On the day of my departure, my bags were all packed at the end of the hallway and Tiny brought the knotted rag to me to throw off in to the distance. I threw it toward my bags. She dashed happily off to catch the toy.

And, stopped. Once Tiny saw the bags, she looked back at me, wandered in to the bedroom I had occupied and back out by the luggage...then slowly made her way back to the living room and sat on the floor beside me. No knotted rag.

It was in an instant that she realized that this novelty in her life (me) was no longer going to be there. Her countenance completely changed in a matter of seconds! The next few hours she wandered around with a sad look on her face before we headed toward the airport.

This was quite shocking for me because I'm not that clued in to dogs.

However, here I am years later having one of these same type of Tiny moments.

This morning one of my good friends drove off in to the ....sun rise. She's been my roommate about four times over the past 11 years. We've gone through some of the fun and a lot of the difficult parts of life together. She had moved closer to the city a few years ago and so we would catch up every month or two. She's been living with me the past few months as she prepares for her new opportunity - teleworking in another state.

Late last night and early this morning I woke up crying with a profound sorrow. It was like my body had that same sudden change as Tiny had when she realized that someone that she spent time with would be gone for a while.

I've had this feeling at the end of each year of college, or whenever my family moved, or whenever I moved. It was the realization that an experience had ended and it would never be the same after that point. For some reason the soul has to mourn this change for at least a few moments before it can embrace the next set of experiences, challenges, adventures, etc.

These are good, though difficult, moments. It causes reflection. It reminds us of all that we've gone through with a person, place, or thing. It gives meaning to our lives as we realize how many of these experiences with friends, families, acquaintances - and even dogs - become interwoven in to who we are and what we will become.

So, thank you for your friendship Harrison! Here's hoping that wonderful adventures await! Perhaps this journey will be difficult, but there will be some joys and surprises along the way. Plus, it is 2011 - which means we have modern technology to keep in touch while remembering some of the fun moments of the past.

To sum it all up - one of my favorite little poems of all time:

"You are the piece to the puzzle

of someone else's life.

You may never know

where you fit.

But, others will fill the holes in their lives

with pieces of YOU."