Parents across Shepparton and beyond waved goodbye to their children this week as they crossed a threshold into the great world and went to school, many for the first time.
Others would have returned to the familiar and welcoming world of teachers and friends, while still others would have encountered something entirely different in Shepparton’s new, very splendid and perhaps slightly daunting secondary college.
Each would have said goodbye to one stage of their lives to begin another.
I am at the other end of the parent telescope now – but those Kahlil Gibran moments of looking back at the river and the mountain peaks and the valleys and then letting go with a shiver of fear to join the great ocean are still vivid.
They return every time my three grandkids visit. When it’s time to leave, the goodbyes can take forever.
Young children just love a long goodbye.
It starts in the kitchen when the G word is mentioned. It continues with hugs and hand-waving at the front door.
More waving through the car window in the driveway. Yet more frantic hand-waving through open windows as the car drives up the street.
Then it’s the slow walk back to a silent house to pick up the Lego, the self-winding race cars that are sometimes still screaming and to wipe up the juice spills and biscuit crumbs and wait for next time. Another chapter finished, another stream crossed in our journey to the sea.
One of the first things we learn is how to say goodbye.
Babies understand very quickly this is an important human ritual and that waving is endless fun. The Queen certainly thinks so.
Arrivals are perhaps not so much fun. Who are these people and why are they smiling expectantly at me? What’s going to happen?
This week has been a series of long goodbyes for me. Yesterday was my final day of employment at the News after 30 years of keyboard bashing, note-scribbling and trying to tell the story of other people’s journeys to the great sea. And the goodbyes are not over yet — there’s a lot more hand-waving out the window to come. I am now running out of memorable anecdotes and fond memories for farewell speeches.
At last I’m free to sail my own ship into an anabranch of this river. But I’m in no hurry, I might just drift in these still waters for a while before the last great rush into the ocean.
This week, as I looked at all those News photos of bright, happy faces flickering with nerves and excitement about to cross the bar into a much larger, unknown, thrilling sea, I felt a small surge of pride wash over me.
I didn’t know any of those young secondary school students, but I felt they were all our children because as a community we have shared the roiling river of fear and upset, protest and anger that had brought them to this point — the harbour entrance of their towering new school.
It’s a huge investment of money and confidence in our community and now, at last, we can celebrate the launch of nearly 3000 small ships packed with dreams sailing into this exciting new era of education in Shepparton.
This new journey certainly won’t be without its storms, but I do believe we must now all seize the chance to wave a last goodbye to that river of angst and those valleys of despair that our parents and teachers have endured during the past few years.
So goodbye to all that — and go well young sailors, may you always have the wind at your back.
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