This is the last time

At 10000 m above the USA in a tin can there are ways of passing the tedium. Messrs Jobs and Dell provide substantial gadgets for passing time. Armed as any respected modern man with an iPod, albeit a nano version of the Nano (1 GB), and a laptop, all that can undermine the onslaught against in-flight boredom is the exhaustion of battery packs.

But this trip of which this flight is the return to Boston, is a final chapter in a ongoing farewell. Yes, Stellenbosser will depart this Thursday from Boston to Stellenbosch for four years. Since that momentous day of my resignation from my recent employment through this past weekend with friends in Oregon, the days and weeks have been one long goodbye.

So often in the past have I yearned for the day of my return to my beloved Stellenbosch for more than a brief two weeks of vacation at the end of each year of toil in a country notorious for meager leave benefits. To be with my friends, family and common surroundings; to speak in my language and idiom to others without loss in translation; to share in the daily lives of these people very much part of me - such have been the hope that craved in me all these six and a half years in Boston.

But when the time has come and the decision been made, the joy of the imminent return is somehow troubled. Suddenly the past six and a half years stand up to be counted. There are names and faces and smiles and laughter that cannot be forgotten. There were moments and events and experiences that will remain etched in the mind, recorded for the quiet times at lunch or at night to replay, to remind me of these years in Boston.

In such times, one inevitably takes stock of the collection that defines a significant era of one's life. What have been gained and lost? What and who will be most remembered? What will be the greatest loss when the era has ended? Contrary, what has been the greatest gain of that same era? Can one look back and say it was worth the separation from home and country? And this here in Boston - has that not become home yet again? And will the return not introduce a new craving for the people and places of the days in Boston?

As I answer these questions for me, the reality of life presents itself with soberness and without sentimentality: Life is such. Events introduce new eras and with these, new places and faces. It flows like a river to the ocean. One cannot stop a river or it will stagnate. It visits tranquil pools and rapturous rapids, gaining volume and strength on the way to join the ocean.

Like a roller on the ocean
Life is motion
Move on
Like the wind that's always blowing
Life is flowing
Move on
Like the sunrise in the morning
Life is dawning
Move on
How I treasure every minute
Being part of being in it
With the urge to
Move on

[ABBA]