Let me say goodbye today.
Let me wish you well on your journey

before I get all teary and full of
would coulda shouldas

as we do when people we love
suddenly shove off for any

number of reasons. Or people
we don’t love in particular,

some we perhaps don’t know
well but we see often enough

that they feel like semi-
permanent fixtures in our

current existence. The older
Asian man at the gas station

who routinely bows when he
accepts my cash from behind

the counter. Susan, who cuts my
hair, or Eric, the pedicure guy,

who gives the best foot and
calf massage. The young woman

whose name I don’t know who
bags my groceries with engineer-

like precision. Former students,
thousands of them, whose names

have fled, but whose faces, some
of them, I recall—you in that seat

over there—who listened and wrote
things that I read and graded.

I hope I was kind. This human or
that one I pass on a walk,

especially the ones pushing
strollers with tiny mammals

inside, or those walking dogs,
sometimes equally tiny mammals,

often larger ones. I appreciate
the smiles, the wags. We are all

heading down the same path.
No one gets out alive. We’re

not meant to. But should you
head off into mystery before

I do, whether or not I remember
your name, let me say that

sharing this space with you—
one of the fixed stars in my

daily orbit—has been a gift,
whether I was bright enough

to recognize it or not.
So let me say goodbye.

Let me say thank you.

•••

For All Souls day, thinking of all the souls of our
companion spirits, the dear departed.