If you’re a regular Babbling Brook reader, you know these last couple months have been a whirlwind for the Willow Brook community. On October 31, 2022, it was announced that Troy McKnight would be the incoming CEO of Willow Brook—hello! On January 31, 2023, Larry Harris spent his last day as CEO—goodbye.
It would be easy to stop there, following the old adage that life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, but the Babbling Brook has another take on this. Namely, that every goodbye is eventually followed by another hello. To better explain, we offer you this wise line from the popular 1990s tune, Closing Time: “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
So here we are, in this space of new beginnings that was borne of an ending, which itself was once a beginning (confused yet?). The wheel keeps turning, friends. And Willow Brook keeps going, and keeps growing, and keeps doing what we do best: living out our mission to care for older adults with compassion and love.
Other examples: here in central Ohio, we’ve had a few days where it felt as if we might be saying goodbye to winter and hello to spring, but we know better, don’t we, fellow Buckeyes? We know how we can have multiple seasons rear their heads in the course of a single day, from sun and warm-ish breezes one moment, to a cold front followed by sleet and flurries later in the day (or the hour!). Still, on the days when we are teased by the warming temperatures, we look forward to saying hello once again to the sprouting green, and the buds on the trees, and the birds singing their songs just a bit louder.
The Christian Bible, too, talks quite a bit about hellos and goodbyes. There are many references to making things new and former things falling away; to new covenants and new creations; and perhaps most poignantly, to the birth of a child named Jesus in what is the present-day Middle East, the “ending” represented by his crucifixion and death, and the new beginning of his resurrection. Hello. Goodbye. Hello.
All this is to say, we are in good company. Our hellos, goodbyes, and hellos are a part of the cadence of our lives, and we bend along with the winds of change and the hellos, goodbyes, and hellos that come with it. Hellos can be scary, because they are unknown. Goodbyes can be sad, because we often process them as losses. But really, if we take a lesson from the rhythms of the seasons and nature, look carefully at how our day-to-day lives are lived, and dip into sacred and holy texts, we see that those endings we so often mourn are always making space for the beginning of something new. What a blessing. Hello. Goodbye. Hello.
One thought on “Hello, Goodbye, Hello”
Beautiful! Thank you. I am missing everybody so much…