Hellos and goodbyes

On the last Tuesday of 2016, I stood on a street corner in New York squealing in delight, and without an ounce of shame, jumped up and down hugging my dear friend Annie, tears of joy forming in our eyes. We had finally pulled off a meeting of our two clans. It took our family to travel from Melbourne and hers from a couple of hours outside London, but we did it.

Once we remembered that there were other people on the street, we set to introducing our families to each other. Our husbands shook each other’s hands, and our girls shyly greeted each other with hugs. That was the last moment of shyness for the rest of the week.

Our families have had a week of being tourists in the most wonderful city in the world. We looked at the Manhattan skyline from across the Brooklyn Bridge; we soared to the top of the Rockefeller Building, gazing across the city as the sun started to set from dozens of stories above the ground; we sat in cafes, warming up on coffee and hot chocolate and wonderful conversation; we wandered through Central Park as snowflakes started to fall, the girls unable to believe their luck as they ran with their arms outstretched catching the snow; we saw in 2017 standing in Central Park with fireworks exploding over our heads with the promise of a new year. And throughout it all, diabetes was managed by those of us who wear our pancreas on the outside of our bodies – but didn’t for a moment affect the time we were having.

Annie and I know each other because of diabetes. She is mother to three extraordinary girls, one (Pumplette) who happens to have diabetes. I’ve linked to her blog many times here, and if you’ve not popped by yet, please do!

We often spoke about how wonderful it would be to introduce our families – although we did have some concerns at our girls actually being able to discuss their neglectful mothers who, it seems, abandon them at the drop of a hat to rush off to some diabetes conference or another.

We made it happen this week, and our girls barely paused for breath, chatting constantly, getting excited at all the city has to offer and amusing themselves with endless rounds of Banagram. Our kidlet was thrilled to have three new friends and couldn’t get enough of spending time with them.

And then tonight, after a last meal, we said goodbye. As we rode on the subway from the restaurant to our apartment, the tears started. And  they continued as Annie, her husband and their beautiful three girls left our apartment for the last time to head back to their own. Our kid and Pumplette had not let each other go since leaving the restaurant and parting was particularly hard for them. They had really hit it off – in the same way that their mothers had. I watched my girl with Annie’s girl and knew that she had made a friend for life.

We closed our apartment door. Annie and her family headed for the elevator and I sat next to our kidlet on the couch as floods of tears started. I hugged her tight, promising that it would not be the last time that she saw the girls. I reminded her that Annie and I live on opposite sides of the world and are in contact all the time – that we speak and message and FaceTime frequently.

And I reminded her how wonderful it was that as 2016 ended and 2017 started she had made three wonderful new friends. She nodded and wiped away her tears. ‘I miss them already,’ she said. And I nodded too. Because I understand how that feels. I know the elation of seeing friends from far flung places and then, when saying farewell, not knowing when we will see each other again. But the beauty of it is that while it hurts to say goodbye, there is an endless promise of saying hello again. And I assured it that she would say hello and hug those girls again. Many, many times.

Happy New Year, everyone!