So long!

I was very close to my grandmother, my "Nanny," when I was a child.  She was my savior in a house that knew too many arguments.  Her basement apartment was my refuge, a place where we could eat barbecue potato chips while watching Bonanza or create doll clothes for my Ginny (and later my Barbie) on her ancient sewing machine or just play poker at her little table.  She often had words of wisdom for me (some of which my mother did not approve), but the most enduring and endearing words were these:  "Never say 'goodbye.'  'So long' means you will see each other again."

Today, I said "So long!" to my 22-year-old son who began his solo drive out to California.  Sam, a 2014 graduate of the University of Vermont, has an internship with the US Bureau of Land Management in northeastern California.  He will be there until November.  Post-graduation, he had less than a week to spend here at home, but it was enough time for me to get used to his presence and more than enough time to make me miss him already.

I think it was interesting that the song that was playing  when I came inside after tearfully waving "So long!" to him was Neil Young's Expecting to Fly.

There you stood
on the edge of your feather,
expecting to fly.
While I laughed,
I wondered whether
I could wave goodbye,
knowing that you'd gone.
By the summer it was healing,
we had said goodbye.
All the years
we'd spent with feeling
ended with a cry.

Would the song be the same if I substituted so long for goodbye?  Well, I guess it would throw off the rhyme, right?

I said "So long!" to my son.  We will see one another again, hopefully in late summer or early fall when I fly out to visit him.  And I am in love with the idea that my grandmother imparted to me half a century ago.  I said "So long!"