arriving and leaving

I was telling a friend about two losses in our family, and she said, "It was time to leave, so they left. Philosophically, it is easier to see that, but we still miss them." I began thinking about the way we use language to describe the appearances and disappearances of people or animals. We generally use words like "birth" and "death." Both these words assert a definite beginning and an end. But my friend's word "leaving" stayed with me. Arriving and leaving offer the sense of coming and going. They give us the sense that there is no border between the here and the there. We appear out of nowhere or somewhere and leave to nowhere or somewhere (depending on our faith). We are like passengers on a train, getting off at the stop called Planet Earth, and taking off one day on a train to another destination. But the leave taking seems to have the suggestion of return; it is more like an au revoir than the goodbye that death suggests. Death gives the feeling of all the memories, imagination, and aspirations coming to a grinding halt. Whereas, leaving gives the feeling of those memories, imagination, and aspirations of the one who has left still lingering. The other side of the tracks is vaguely visible through the mist. The images of the departed lean into our dreams as if they have never left. They sometimes come back in the birth of a new family member, a friend, an angel. The mist lifts, thickens, or thins; it becomes part of our world, veiling and unveiling itself.