Goodbye

So sad.

Of all the words in the English language, one of the saddest is “goodbye.”

Consider the Kansas Woman’s family who left behind neighbors and family to migrate to central Kansas.

Her mother’s folks are first found in Connecticut, then a couple of generations in Oswego, NY, near Syracuse. Not all of them left New York for Washington County, Kansas.

I don’t know how they picked that particular place. Was it from an advertisement, or did a pioneer write back of the opportunity and rich land?

Her father’s people were blacksmiths in Chester County, PA, moved to Wisconsin for a generation or so then migrated en mass to Washington County.

Somewhere along the way they lost a few who were happy where they were.

A few of her great-grandfather’s siblings stayed in Wisconsin. They had married and their roots were only getting deeper there.

Some were farmers, but as the Rowland clan headed for Washington County, Wisconsin was getting full. Lumber was the prime product, and it was beginning to look like the place they left in Pennsylvania.

While I think of her great-grandfather goading a team of oxen, fording rivers, dodging arrows, the truth is that by the time her folks migrated to Kansas, the place was crossed with railroads.

Of the thousands of people who sold farms for the opportunity at the end of the Oregon Trail, some said farewell to children, parents, friends, but it was an eternal goodbye. In that day a reunion was out of sight.

They could not conceive that within a generation the nation would be stitched together by railroads and telegraph. The oceans were connected by rail in 1869.

I recall a man in Alma, GA, who was one of the greater lights of the town.

He was ready to pitch in when there was a need. His heart was as open as his checkbook.

I was a child, but I remember a crowd of people standing outside his house, quiet, somber.

Inside the house he was busy dying. A word leaked out and spread among the crowd in whispers.

“He has asked for the family,” someone announced from the front porch.

A few people mounted the steps and disappeared. One of them, a young, hard man, wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt and was the last to pass through the screen door.

“He has told them goodbye,” came word from the porch.

Street lights came on, time passed, neighbors came and went. Many in the crowd had left for home when there was a wail of women crying.

“Goodbye,” at last.

joenphillips@yahoo.com