It Is Getting Harder To Say Goodbye

It gets harder to say goodbye to my mom when she leaves.

It gets harder to say goodbye to any of my family members when I get to see them. A year away from my mother, father, and brothers feels like an eternity.

I wasn’t always this way. I left the nest before anyone else in my family did. I lived in St. Louis for three years, Florida for three years, California for six months and then eventually Montana. I was never homesick, at least not until a few years ago.

My first couple of years here, we did not visit my hometown. We didn’t have the means. As our pay got a little better, and we had our...