The Languages We Leave Behind
On leaving, being remembered, and the quiet bonds that remain
The Languages We Leave Behind
In September, I will walk new corridors.
There is excitement in that thought. New faces. New names. A new chapter waiting to be written. Yet every beginning asks us to loosen our grip on something that has quietly become part of us.
Today reminded me of that.
A little boy I have worked with for several years came into the corridor in tears after a minor mishap. Two teaching assistants were trying to work out what had happened. He stood there, caught somewhere between being hurt and being seven.
I called him over.
When I looked at him, he turned his head away, already trying not to smile.
“B,” I laughed, “breathe with me.”
Years ago, we invented a little breathing game for the days when the world felt too big. We didn’t need to explain it anymore. We simply knew.
He burst into laughter.
I asked him to wiggle his finger as I did.
“Can it do this? Can it do that? Can you move it in a circle like mine?”
By then, he was giggling so much that the tears had stopped, and the corridor laughed with him. He threw his arms around me, held on for a moment, then wandered back into his day as though nothing remarkable had happened.
I stayed where I was.
Not because I was sad that he had walked away, but because I realised something I hadn’t been ready to admit.
The bond that we had built had not faded.
We were simply walking in different directions.
In a few weeks, he will still be finding his way through those corridors. I will be finding my way through new ones. We may never play that little breathing game again.
Yet somehow, that doesn’t feel like loss.
It feels like a language that no longer needs to be spoken every day to be remembered.
Perhaps that is one of life’s quiet gifts.
Some people walk beside us for years. Others for only a season. But every now and then, if we are fortunate, we leave one another with a language that time cannot quite erase.
A look.
A breath.
A shared laugh.
And the quiet certainty that, for a little while, we helped one another find the light.
I wonder what quiet language you still carry from someone you no longer walk beside, yet remember deeply.
~ Nerra x
The fire has grown from ember to flame, but the circle here remains the same. There is a place for you here at the campfire.
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Thank you for sharing
This was so lovely Nerra. That moment will stay always. Good luck in September. New memories. New path. New names. There is something exciting about that. 💖