Say goodbye, goodbye

The time to say goodbye to my job at school is here and it’s one of the hardest things I think I’ll ever have to do. It’s not just about leaving the job, though I think it’s a darn good one. It’s about leaving children who are amazing in their own ways, whose smiles just light up the corridors, who will flourish beyond society’s expectations for them and whose cheeky personalities will keep every tutor on their toes.

Standing in front of everyone and acknowledge my leaving was something I did not look forward to. It hadn’t really sunk in until then. It was hard to sit through the after-school meeting without breaking down, listening to everyone else’s favourite memories about their time in the school…and then it was time to sing the goodbye song we sing at every Leavers’ assembly. It was like opening a pair of floodgates. 

This last week has been surreal. There have been small successes, other little things that made me smile, and a big performance at the end…what a way to go.

I’ve never been what you’d consider ‘outgoing’. My way of letting people know I appreciate them is to do stuff for them. So I decided to make some special cookies from my childhood for my colleagues. The recipe is from my mom’s recipe drawer, written on an old card titled simply ‘Hungarian cookies’. I now realize they’re a kind of shortbread. Making these cookies for my class reminded me how much I like making things for people to enjoy and why I’m going off to do a patisserie course.

So I know I have to leave and why, but it’s still hard. After all, how do you say goodbye to someone you care about who can’t say goodbye back? It’s that last moment that I’m dreading.