The people I have found

Life is too full of goodbyes, of moving on, of leaving people behind. That is one thing I like about marriage. I want someone I will never have to leave behind no matter what. Whatever happens and wherever we go and however many times we have to move, despite all the unknown people and unfamiliar places, we will always be together. I need something that doesn’t change.

There are just two weeks left here, and I have to admit, I am ready to go. I am ready to finish teaching, to finish grading, to give finals and turn in grades. I am ready to be surrounded by people who speak a language I understand. I think that will be pretty cool. Even though I will be immediately confronted by a month of classes and stress, I want to get on with it. I want to be with Kevin. Now that I have started packing and giving away and moving out, I know it is time to move on. Now that the goodbyes have started, I am ready for them to be over.

I am not very good at goodbyes. I had my last class with the sophomore students that I have taught for two years. They sat their looking at me with such sad eyes. One of my students came up afterwards and tried to say how much they would miss me. “We love you,” she said. Yesterday a student came by the office to give me a gift and a letter that made me want to cry. She wrote, “At last, I’ve found a person to talk with, then she is about to leave…”

I know how much I like them and will miss them, but I don't understand how they love me so much. I do everything differently and half of the time wrong. I give them just a little bit of my time and then I go away. They know I am just passing through, but they still open themselves up and invite me in. I mean something to them; they have wanted me as their friend. I am amazed by how much they care.

Sometimes it seems like in America, anyone is willing to be your surface friend. You can hang out and join the group, but if you leave, no one really notices too much. People are always coming and going. It costs too much to really get attached to someone, especially when they are likely to leave you. People already have their close friends. In China, it takes a long time to break through the surface. But once you have broken through, you are accepted. You are important. You are not forgotten. People allow you to touch them and impact them. They allow themselves to need you and to be needed. I am saddened and amazed to realize that my leaving matters.

I can only hope they realize that they are important to me too. They are not just another student, another friend. I was the teacher, but they have taught me so much about the joys and sorrows of life, about the depth of the human heart. They have shown me that when two people become friends, no one goes away unchanged.

I can only hope that next year, I will be able to find people like I have found here.