Departure Overwhelm

It’s strange how you notice and value something differently once it’s gone. For me, the past few weeks bought this lesson home: I miss my neighbours.

The house still sits overwhelmingly silently. Our lovely neighbours are no longer there. They left a month ago. They left their house, and they left our lives. It’s not as if we won’t speak to them again – we’ve already had some emails; see them – there is discussion of a visit to their new home 4-hours away; or care about them – that is endless. We will remain a part of each others lives, but in a very different, more distanced way.

As ‘adopted’ family-by-choice, our wonderful neighbours took on a role of friends…and beyond. As immigrants, they had no ‘real’ family in Canada. Their friends became family. With my husband as an immigrant too, we valued a shared understanding of life in a new land. As a fellow holistic practitioner, we also shared an interest in healing, the environment, and social justice – as kindred spirits. As sports fans, we talked, watched and cheered soccer together. As food lovers, they shared their home-baked bread and we treated them to amazing BBQ-ed meals.

But our friendship was enriched far more by their children. Childless-by-choice, we don’t plan to have children ourselves. With our neighbours’ two daughters, we had the best of all worlds: kids who loved, respected, and laughed with us, and kids who returned home. We became role-models in their lives – ones they sometimes listened to in different ways, even more than, their parents at times.

The blessing beyond it all – the kids brought great joy into my mother’s life. While the kids have grandparents on the other side of the world, my mom became the granny-figure in their lives here. She is a favourite by far! She enhanced their lives and they sparkled in hers with overwhelming joy.

What is different today? The love remains, but technology steps in. Before it was daily waving across the street, meeting in the middle of the road, dropping by on a whim, and calling to borrow a ‘this or that.’ Now it’s an email every few weeks, and maybe occasionally skype. It’s holidays without a visit, fruit and veggies that go unshared, and a hollow sound in the air.

Yes, it’s the sound that is most noticeably absent. Each time I arrived home, opened a window, or went into the garden, the sound of the kids would ring. The giggles, storytelling, and shrieks are missing now. With each lost sound, it reminds me of their absence, of the hole they left in our daily lives, and of the overwhelm that departures sometimes bring.

This Canadian Thanksgiving, I give thanks for the history we share with them, the joy they bring to us, and the lesson of appreciating their love…even when it’s too late to bask in it every day. To our lovely neighbours…thank you for your friendship!

(C) 2011 Whitney McMillan

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Whitney McMillan is a best-selling author, life & business coach, workshop facilitator, & motivational speaker who supports people weighed down by overwhelm to reach Overwhelm Freedom! Check out her book ‘Rock Your Overwhelm: Live in Clarity, Balance and Freedom’ and receive her FREE eWorkbook and eZine tips: www.whitneymcmillan.com