So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu

People come into your life for a reason.  The time you spend together may not be long, but it can be meaningful.  This is what they (whoever they are) say.  It's true.  In my life, I have been blessed with people who have made my life better-repeatedly.  Of course there have been those I have only met in order to learn some valuable/hard lesson, but I learned something from them anyway.  But this post isn't about them, it is about the blessings.  The people who have saved me from going completely crazy.  The people who have brought me perspective when I needed it.  The people who have made me a better person because I know them.

I had to say goodbye to my friend Kathy tonight.  When I arrived in Taji, Kathy was on leave and returned just a couple of days after I got here.  She worked in the building where we have our "office" so I would see her around, but we didn't actually work together.  In fact, while I had spoken with her a few times, we didn't really actually get to know each other very well until I went to team-building.  She is a great encourager.  That is one of the things I really like about her.  She is positive and encouraged me from my first volleyball game, until the end.  No joke, she told me to keep working out when she gave me a hug goodbye at the airport.  She is the reason I moved past reading the running magazines and actually started running.  More than encouraging, she is a woman of integrity, which is something I admire in others.  She has a very strong sense of what is right and wrong and doesn't stray from that.  It made me reevaluate my own life to make sure that I was making decisions for the right reasons.

I gave her a hard time one day about inviting someone else to go to the gym after work in front of me and not inviting me.  From that moment on, she didn't give up.  She asked me every day.  And most days, I went.  I went through a couple of weeks when my body was more sore than it has ever been in my life and all I wanted to do was take a day off, but she somehow talked me into going back.

Beyond encouraging me to live a healthier lifestyle, she has been a good friend to me.  She has listened to me vent, let me have a minute when I couldn't take it anymore, and quietly closed the door handing me a ROLL of papertowels when it seemed that a Kleenex wasn't going to cut it.  When she knew I was having a rough day, she checked up on me.

For the past month, I have been saying, "I can't believe you are leaving so soon.  I am not ready for you to go."  And she would reply, "I am ready to go.  I miss my family."  I would say, "I know.  You are ready to go, but I am still not ready for it."  She has a husband and two kiddos at home who are ready to have her back.  I am very happy for her to get to go be with her family.  I just wish I would have been able to spend more time around her.

I will leave you with a picture from the Master Sergeant's last team-building today, softball.  Love, M