I’ve been home for sevenish months now, but I still feel like I just got back. I have moments of walking down the sidewalk and hearing someone laugh behind me. I’ll turn around before I even think about it, expecting to see one of the kids I met this summer. I cry at odd times, I miss it achingly, I yearn to go back, and pray I have the opportunity.
The things that seemed so hard to learn now stick with me the closest. There is not a word in Native culture for “goodbye.” The nearest word is what you would use at a funeral. So you do not say “goodbye,” you say “see ya later!”
It felt like it took me forever to learn that. I would slip up and say goodbye to a kid leaving youth group. Trying so hard to be respectful of this culture I was fast falling in love with, I’d mentally berate myself over it for the rest of the evening.
But then time slipped by and before I knew it I was saying “see ya later,” “see you soon,” “talk to you later,” and the other similar, hopeful substitutions. And the beauty of another culture’s language became grafted into mine.
I’ve been home for sevenish months now, but new, sweet habits die hard. And just as I still remember the sound of those kids laughing, I still hesitate to say “good-bye.” I like the hopefulness of “see ya later.”