Saying Goodbye

How many times can you say goodbye without tears edging out of your eyes? This week I said goodbye 900 times to darling faces. In each class, we sang goodbye songs, they signed my goodbye book and took class pictures. The songs helped a little and at the same time made things worse. Graduation Song by Vitamin C just makes me want to grab, hug and hold on to everyone around me. I Will Remember You was also chosen because it was simple, slow and easy to learn but oh it pulls those tears out of your eyes like a magnet is drawn to a fridge. Finally, Hello/Goodbye by the Beatles was sung by all my classes, even the babies because it was so easy. I had to pick something to pick everyone up after all the warm and fuzzies or I would have classrooms full of crying children every single period for five days. And they would also have a weeping teacher. 

The lessons I taught this week were "scooch" and "weep." I am serious. Weep was another word for cry and scooch was from getting them all in a frame for pictures (which was still impossible in many cases). I started breaking up my classes into boys and girls and even then it was difficult. 

The looks on their faces when my co-teachers told them that this was the last time they would see me---THAT look is what killed me. My Prat. 1/1 babies were the worse. It was a look that only a small child could give and it was just so sad. If you look in some of my pictures you will actually some of them had been/were still crying. I mean, what do you do with that? 

Some of my kids asked for hugs shyly and some of them threw themselves at me like I was their favorite candy. Every time I am on the stairwell I hear muffled, sad "good-bye Teacher" from sad little children. Then there are the kids that want my signature and Facebook. I even got stickered today by my favorite class. I think it is wonderful that my final class that I taught in Thailand was my favorite class. They were the rowdiest and naughtiest, but they were bright, strong, sweet, eager and mischievous. 

I can come next week to clean out my desk, so I do not have to pack up and get out of here when 5 p.m. hits, which is nice. I am just a little emotional. I adore my kids and saying goodbye to them is heart-wrenching.

Today at lunch, my teachers also threw me a lunch party, which was really sweet of them. It was a nice way to say goodbye, even if I will see them next week when I come by to clean up my desk and make sure everything is good.

Now, I travel to Lampang for my final company meeting and then I am technically finished with this past year. It is crazy to believe really. And this is the first time all of the TTC teachers will be together again since this past summer. Our numbers are significantly reduced though.But it will be nice to see those people who were here with me, even if they weren't in the same city and we rarely got to see each other. Let's end this thing right!