Josh left on Monday night, heading back to Israel with Dana. It was a bit more than a month since their last set of goodbyes, and everyone was so exhausted by the whole farewell procedure.
We who adore them are still sad they don't live here. We were thrilled to have them here for 10 days. We will continue to miss them. We know that they miss us. We worry sick about them living in a country with that level of conflict. But how much heightened emotion can you take?
Big, long-term goodbyes take a lot of energy. You try to summon all the sincerity and bittersweet heart-swelling sentiments you can in order to perfectly encapsulate the moment of goodbye.
Ideally, you leave just before the feeling is about to spill over, the perfect farewell tucked neatly in your pocket.
But with Jewish goodbyes, you always have to double back to get the ziplock bag of mandelbroit from the kitchen table. And then someone else wants to come and say goodbye from another part of the house. Then you have to say a lesser, more pragmatic goodbye once again at the door.
Exhausting, I tell you.
But this time, the goodbye was light. I left Josh in his room, doing some last minute packing. Goodbye! Lehitraot! gooooooodbyyyyyye!!!! we laughed as I walked down the stairs and let myself out.
