No Goodbyes but instead God Be With You…Uncle Lawrence-Tanyi-Ambassador!
‘Good’ and ‘bye’, two words, with two distinct meanings, seemingly unrelated. I use this simple compound word every day from saying goodbye to colleagues and staff after a hard day’s work to ending telephone conversations with loved ones. Whether, I am talking to my colleagues or friends, goodbye is synonymous with ‘see you later ‘or ‘catch you on the flip side.’ And sometimes, when I am in a hurry, I often drop the ‘good’ and just say ‘bye.’ An assumption is made that we will see each other again, and thus our goodbyes are lighthearted. But this is not the case, when it is time to say good-bye to a loved one who has passed away and you know that you will never see them in this lifetime again.
I have been blessed over the years with many wonderful people in my life. I have also lost many loved ones and friends, more than I care to admit. What do call a person who is born an uncle, but throughout your life, their uncle status transcended into that of a protector, guidance counselor, a father, a disciplinarian and a friend. Uncle Lawrence expanded the role of uncle far beyond its typical job description. Picking up and dropping off my siblings from school. Attending parent-teacher conferences. Attending graduations, birthday celebrations and many other events in our lives. Uncle Lawrence was not a perfect person. He often brought bags of chips home to us that were missing a few chips or a sandwich that was missing the other half. But whenever my siblings received these items, you would have thought that they had never eaten chips or a sandwich before. For us, the most importance thing was that Uncle Lawrence thought about us and cared about us, enough to bring us half of what he had eaten during the day. Uncle Lawrence was a funny man and was determined to be young forever. He was the one Uncle that could get away with wearing a 2 piece white tracksuit from the 80’s. Whenever he wore his tracksuits – he made you believe that they were coming back in style. Death is a topic that brings us face to face with our own mortality.
Thank God for his blessings and consideration for not letting the end of this lifetime be the end of our spiritual existence. I will celebrate the life of Uncle Lawrence in a healthy way because I know without a shadow of doubt that death came to him because his work on this earth was complete. There is a theory that the etymology of ‘goodbye’ is an alteration of God be with you. I for one, subscribe to this theory. In doing so, my request to the Almighty is that, “God be with you Uncle Lawrence until we meet again.”
Love Alway,
Shella