My Irish Goodbye

 According to AI, an "Irish goodbye" (or "Irish exit") is the act of leaving a party or social gathering without formally saying goodbye to the host or other guests. Often used to avoid drawn-out, emotional farewells or to bypass awkward social pressure to stay, it is considered a practical, quiet, and increasingly accepted, non-rude, or even polite, way to leave a place.

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I did a “thing” today. 

I quietly slipped out of the office.

After 34 years, I retired.

I also attended my last CMDS faculty meeting.  Give or take ten or so, it was my 918th meeting.  We accomplished a lot in those 73,440 minutes.  For one of those minutes I considered staying another 3 years so that I could hit an even 1000 but that seemed excessive. 

When I was a little girl my grandmother used to call me “instant tears.”  I cried every single time we pulled out of the drive way to their house.  As an adult I would cry as James and I backed out of my parent’s driveway.  I also cry every time my Christmas guests leave (immediately before I take a nap) It was apparent from very early in my life that I am terrible at “goodbyes.”  So, in a completely childish way, I refuse to say it.  It doesn’t feel good and I don’t like it so I simply don’t do it.

I actually had to adopt this “never say goodbye” policy early in my professional career as the world of academia is filled with people arriving and leaving every five months. Give or take another ten or so I have clinically supervised north of 800 students and placed more than 225 interns in their school and medical rotations. If I had to say goodbye to all of those people I would be bed bound and on very heavy medication.  

If you have ever had any sort of relationship with me, the door is always open.  If I had my way, I would stay in touch or in some way connected to everyone I have ever had a relationship with (professional or otherwise).  To those people not in my life I can honestly say it has been by their choice because like I said, I don’t say “goodbye.”

Early on people began to ask me how I wanted to celebrate this milestone and I kept thinking that I didn’t.  After careful consideration of the timing and after some clearly received signs from God that I had been praying for I made the decision that it was time to leave the job that I have mostly loved all of my adult life.  I am laying down the title of “director of clinical education” with very mixed emotions.  James has been counting down for me for months and honestly every time he would announce how many days I had left I got just a little more nauseous.

Hence, my decision to just sort of slip out of the office without the typical fanfare.

I would feel remiss however, if I failed to give a proper nod of genuine thanks to the many individuals that helped to raise me in academia. In no particular order, 

My thanks go to Dr. John Applegate for calling me up on that hot summer day in 1992 and asking me to come and interview for a new job they were creating.  He also taught me how to become comfortable traveling for professional reasons and that I always needed to be able to carry whatever I packed all by myself.  I give him additional thanks for bringing me a flower and card today!

My thanks go to Barb Kline who taught me that it was okay to pray for our students and clients and even okay to keep some Holy Water stashed in my desk drawer for emergencies.

My thanks go to Dr. Paula Cochran who taught me the rules of professional presentations including the importance of matching my outfit with my slides.

My thanks go to the late Dr. Kees Koutstaal for teaching me how to professionally answer a phone (the hard way).

My thanks go to the late Dr. Ken McGuire who taught me that it can make a real difference when you invite a student to go to the union for a chat and a soda.

My thanks go to Dr. Paul Hunt who taught me that men and women think and communicate very differently when it comes to just about everything.

My thanks go to Connie Ikerd for serving as the constant force of super glue that holds a program and clinic together.

My thanks go to Dr. Janet Gooch for teaching me the importance of always having a professional and/or personal goal as it keeps one moving forward.

My thanks go to Dr. Amy Teten for providing such an excellent example of how to lead in a calm and inclusive way. (Just like I knew she would).

My thanks go to Dr. Julia Edgar for her steady and often maternal presence and infectious love of research.

My thanks go to Dr. Megan Batzer who can brighten any space with just a smile and who  models gratitude in a beautiful way.  

My thanks go to Jillian Pulis and Samantha Bishop for carrying the department forward with new energy.

My thanks go to Dr. Ilene Elmlinger who carried me through many days and nights in the “dark and twisty” places and who made me genuinely laugh out loud every. single. day.

My thanks go to Trish Hanson for serving as my go-to phono person for every single student I ever sent her way.  She also gets my sincerest thanks for supervising Adam for many years to get him to an above grade reading level with his dyslexia.

My thanks go to all of the professional colleagues who believed in me enough to take a chance on me at ASHA and MSHA as I tried my hand at professional leadership.  I learned a ton and had the time of my life.

My thanks go to Todd Philbrick and Gretchen Ehret Hoshaw at ASHA for always answering my “cry for help” texts and for being great humans and personal friends.

My thanks go to every prayer partner in my life who have prayed when called upon whenever I was having trouble getting a placement.  Your prayers worked!  I was able to get everyone their clock hours (mostly) on time including during COVID!

Finally, my deepest thanks go to the countless students over the years who taught me much more than I gave them.  Thank you for your kindness, your patience with my tangents and your beautiful willingness to learn from me. You can message me anytime and I will still try and get you an answer.

I’m not going anywhere.  James will continue to work until he feels his “Mary Immaculate Mission” has been completed.  (And actually, I need to thank him as well.  He held the house and boys together for many years as I traveled professionally, always provided a willing ear every time I came home with a another clinic crisis and is the only reason I can afford to retire at this age due to him now carrying me on his health insurance. I thank him also for the beautiful (purple) flowers that he sent today. He too gets my many thanks.)

I’m not leaving the field and may even have a few more professional volunteer leadership roles left in me.  I plan to continue to provide home health services locally and taking students as I do.  I am also fairly certain I will continue to find ways to provide clinical instruction in one way or another.

One of these days a few of us that are still around will meet for a happy hour someplace where we will raise a glass to a job that I hope was mostly well done.  But it wont be to say goodbye. It will never be to say goodbye.

So, for now, I will close in my typical semesterly way.  I will see you at the graduation luncheon tomorrow.  I will see you next week at the hooding.  I will see you next year at MSHA.  I will see you very soon.

The Auction

 James and I have lived in the same house in the same neighborhood for most of our married life.  We used to call this middle class neighborhood “teacher ville” because like ourselves so many of us were involved in teaching or education in one way or another.  Our neighbors across the street were no different.  

When we first moved in we had an elderly set of neighbors across the street (in all actuality they were probably our age at the time but younger people have a funny way of looking at age until they look around realize they are indeed the new “older couple.”  But that takes time and I digress….)

For the sake of privacy I will refer to the couple as June and Jerry.  

By the time we moved in June and Jerry had been retired from teaching for a number of years. Their children were grown and gone and it was just them.  I have never actually even met the children as they either did not seem to visit very often or they did and I was busy raising my own boys.  Nevertheless, I could not pick them out of a crowd.

June and Jerry had a number of retirement hobbies.  They were very active in a bicycle club, enjoyed hiking and long walks and June even took up the ukulele and played with our local ukulele club (yes, we have one of those and no I am not a member).  

To describe the yard one would have to say that the couple took a “naturalistic” approach focusing on sustainability, biodiversity and year round dense plant population.  To the untrained eye like mine, it mostly just looked over grown and un kept.  You say potayto and I say potahto.  The view was never my favorite but being respectful neighbors we never mentioned the view from our windows to June and Jerry.  It was their house.  Their corner of the world so to speak and they had the right to “landscape” it any way they wanted.  And so it went for years and years.

As tends to happen in life, Jerry grew older and died several years ago.  June continued living in the marital home for several years past that time.  She continued her “yard work” and took daily walks all around the neighborhood.  She did not go as far but she still went. Having knees that were not as limber as they once were, and fingers that no longer cooperated their bicycles and her ukulele sat untouched in the house and garage.  

A few years ago June was diagnosed with cancer and was recently placed in a skilled nursing facility to receive the care she needed.  She never returned back home.

Last fall we watched as some people (her family?) stopped by and cut back some of the now really overgrown brush in the yard.   The view had finally changed but I was used to it the other way and I noticed not with the excitement I would have once predicted.

This morning, an auctioneer’s truck and trailer pulled up into their front yard and strangers filled their lawn.  Soon after the auctioneer began his bid calling and item by item, pieces of June and Jerry’s lives were auctioned off.  Their bicycles, a spice rack, a lava lamp, corning ware, a typewriter, a jar of marbles and her ukulele were amongst the possessions that were auctioned up. And finally, the house itself.  How many times had James and I talked about buying that house and re-landscaping the yard to better suit what we would have preferred our view to be?  In the end, James was not home and I watched the auction silently from our son’s bedroom window across the street.  

I watched as the couples entire lives were on the auction block.  Their home.  It’s furnishings.  Their keepsakes.  The items needed for their retirement hobbies.  Everything.

And it struck me in a very melancholy kind of way.  Perhaps it just hits differently after having recently lost my father.  I’m not really sure. All I know is that something happened across the street today and I felt the need to honor it in some way.  I felt the need to let June and Jerry know that someone noticed.  That someone silently honored the lives they had built.  That someone will mourn them as neighbors and friends.  

It’s 2026 and I’m still here.

 When I awoke this morning I found that we had entered another year.  I had no control over it.  It just happened.  It would be the first day of the first year that I lived on the earth without my earthly father holding living space on the planet as well.  How can that be true?  The year 2025 was actually a very nice year……..until it suddenly wasn’t.

James and I began the year in Chicago with Alex and Kelsey.  Kelsey and I saw Les Mis and Alex and James had fun at the winter classic.  We ate at some nice restaurants and welcomed in the new year in style. 

 

 

Alex continued to serve as the father of an orange cat and he acquired his first pinball machine which he proudly stores at the house of mom and dad since he and Kelsey currently move around so much.  

 

 

Alex continues to work for Alberici.  When his project in Ontario wrapped up he spent a few months on a project in Wichita KS and is now in Wentzville, MO for a few more weeks.  He will soon move to Lafayette Louisiana where he will begin an autonomous boat building project.  It gives me the perfect excuse to attend Mardi Gras in 2027 and cross that off the bucket list.

Speaking of Mardi Gras, James and I attended the annual Mary Immaculate fundraiser in February with a Mardi Gras theme.  One of the auction items was for Principal Hendler to kiss a pig which I happily provided a bid for.  

 

In March we had fun boating and celebrating my mom’s 80th birthday in Florida.  We also celebrated James birthday.

 

In April I attended a women’s retreat at my church, celebrated Easter with 

Adam and Lea and attended the first communion of my Goddaughter Eva. I also had fun at MSHA where we took home the “cup” from the Quest for the Cup competition.

 

In May we celebrated with Adam as he graduated with Honors from the University of Central Missouri.  His degree is in cybersecurity.  It also worked out that I got to spend Mother’s Day with both boys.

Following graduation James and I snuck off to Branson for a few days to celebrate the launching of our 2nd son.

In June we celebrated Adam’s 21st birthday and my birthday at Disney and were so happy that the kids could all join us. 

 

While at Disney Adam proposed to Lea and she said yes!

In July we celebrated dad and Ginny’s 40th wedding anniversary at their lake home in Arkansas.  It was to be the last time I saw my dad alive and in person.  We had no idea at the time.  How naïve the pre-grief me was.

We spent the rest of the summer relaxing at the lake and in the condo.

We attended several weddings this year.

While at one of the weddings we got to snap a pic of James with every sibling.  (That never happens) 

We enjoyed attending a tea party bridal shower for Claire and Adam had fun serving as Luke’s best man.  

We were blessed to spend some time with friends this year.

And then I woke up on the morning of  November 1st.  All Saints Day.  I was awakened just in time to say goodbye to my dad on the phone from my bed in Missouri as he quietly slipped away in Arkansas.  That’s when the world as I knew it completely changed.  

To say that this wasn’t supposed to happen is an understatement of such depth that it barely fits the sentiment.  We had plans.  Lots of them.  At some point I will write about the event itself because some truly remarkable things happened during that week. But that day is not today.  Today I am still blindly feeling my way through the world with out one of my parents.  This new world.  This “other” world. A world I did not sign up for and one I am not pleased to travel within.  We gathered. We cried. Collectively we tried to say goodbye in a way that would make him proud.  

Today I continue to quietly make my way through a prolonged fog of icky grief.

Thanksgiving came and went.  It was the first time in 25 years that we did not have either boy with us.

In early December we spent a weekend in St. Louis with Alex and Kelsey doing “Christmassy” things.  We tried to escape the grief but she came right along with us.  

Also in December we went back to Warrensburg to celebrate Lea’s graduation.

That brings us to the past week.  We hosted Christmas with LOTS of help from family.  It’s hard to do when crawling through the sludge of messy grief.  It took the whole village to get it done. We invited Father Joe and Father Boniface. We took some pictures and I smiled because that is what you are supposed to do.   We all did.  We smiled.  I hope that dad can see how hard we are all trying. 

These days I am doing well to get one thing accomplished each day.  The only thing I wanted to get done today was to get this written and out there.  I feel proud to have accomplished that.  It’s not comprehensive.  I have left some things out in the summary of our year.  There are gobs more pics that I could include, the spacing is all off and I am not even bothering to poof read it but this is the best I have in me at the moment.  I have almost made it though day 1 of the year 2026.  I am proud of that too.

Praying for all of us as we enter this next year.  Praying for health, happiness and peace for each of you.