We are millennials, barely. A year or two older and we wouldn’t have made the cut. But as millennials we are used to photo documenting our lives. And while we took many photos during our final few weeks in Portland, none do justice to the experience.
As I finished my last week of work, my coworkers loved me with Beyonce posters around my office, Blue Star donuts and pour over coffee, a potluck put on by the whole clinic, another by the people I work most closely with and one by the nurses I worked with at the hospital. I literally pot-lucked all week long. What luck.
Most of our parents, in the many ways we name them, showed up for Jason’s residency graduation at OHSU. It was a beautiful evening of true celebration with personalized anecdotes of the many ways the residents have touched the lives of those they worked with. It ended with a moving speech by the program director; he closed his remarks with the confidence he has that the future is good in their hands as we all rose in standing ovation, believing with him in the good human beings who will go forth to do good work in the world. I had chills as I stood and applauded the last four years of hard work that Jason had completed and the often gritty, under appreciated and invaluable work that family medicine doctors do.
We hosted 80 (or so, who knows?) of our friends, family and colleagues in and around our house as they filled our home with love to say farewell. The sun brightly lit up the blue sky on a quintessential Portland summer afternoon. In the driveway Mexican ‘street’ style tacos were served and our lawn was filled with more children than anybody was aware that we knew, us included. It was magical.
Four full days were spent paring down our things to fit into our basement. We carefully packed glass, made a trip to the dump, at least four to Goodwill, returned our leased car and managed to fit everything else into a corner as we cross our fingers that no flood or earthquake occurs in our absence. I packed sweater after sweater, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that there was really no scenario in which I would be needing one in a country that has an all time low of 65 F. It felt so good to get rid of stuff, realize that we own quite a bit of stuff but maybe not too much. We now commence the challenge of living with much less in the coming years and are excited about our newfound ‘minimalism’.
Our families hosted us in their homes as we made our way around the greater Portland area to spend afternoons and evenings sharing one last meal before our adventure begins. To have most of our family living in Portland is something we try not to but inevitably take for granted too often. If distance makes the heart grow fonder then leaving must play a role in making all the goodness shine brighter.
Our friends sent us off with evenings full of meaningful quotes, prayers, affirming reflections and without a doubt that we have been participants in a life-giving community of passionate, thoughtful, intelligent human beings whose love is unparalleled.
At first my denial of leaving seemed to suppress my emotions and I wondered if I had grown cold and indifferent. Haha, no, no, fear not. The crying arrived. The kind where tears stream down your face in all different types of ways, sometimes rapidly with slumped and shaking shoulders. More often slowly and meandering as my heart was so overflowing with gratitude that they just started dripping down my face, sometimes catching on my chin before dropping to land on my t-shirt. One time Jason was recounting a memory that moved him to tears, so full of love and thankfulness, then he started to laugh as he cried, then it was hard to know what he was saying. I think that must be how you define “and the heart was bursting with love”. If you ever want to know how loved you are, leave your job, your family, your friends and move across the world.
