The Hardest Goodbye

“I love you Logan. Just keep your head down and get through school. You’ll be good, I know it’s tough.”

“I’ll always be one call away, whenever you need me, I’ll be there.”

“It’s really hard to be away from you.”

On August 28th, 2017, I boarded a plane from Los Angeles to Boston. I had left my house just before 3:00 A.M. to catch my flight that left at 6:00 A.M. I was in the backseat with my hockey bag over my lap with my brother in the front seat. My eyes were already stinging from the tears that were still threatening to fall since I had said goodbye to my two dogs ten minutes prior. The usual forty five minute drive felt like no time had passed at all. I remember listening to the playlist I had made specifically for this trip, naturally being mostly sad and depressing songs. I remember the soothing melodies of Pieces by Rob Thomas, Hold on by Chord Overstreet and Brother by NEEDTOBREATHE. I remember smelling the faint smell of coffee that my mom was sipping throughout the ride and the soft feminine voice coming from the navigation system. I would have given anything to hear the sound of my street name, to see the row of palm trees that line my driveway and to hear the sound of my dogs barking. I just wanted one more day of youth with no responsibility. Just one more day.

Every minute that passed, I felt my chest start to become tighter and I felt my heart rate picking up. The thought of leaving my family behind made my skin feel two sizes to small. We are a very close knit family, and leaving felt like I was violating an unwritten rule. I felt like I was abandoning them. My mom was coming with me to drop me off at school to move me in and get settled but my brother had to stay home and take care of things at home. My brother and I are a lot closer than the average siblings. Before leaving for school, the longest we have been separated was less than a week. My brother is four and a half years older than me, so you would think that the age gap alone would make it so that we weren’t close but that is not the case.

Growing up, my brother was more than happy to have me around even when he was with his friends. I always admired him. I even picked up hockey and lacrosse because I always wanted to be just like my big brother. My relationship with my brother was very complex. He had to step up and grow up at a very young age. At times he was a father figure, other times he was my protective older brother but above all he was always my best friend. Whenever my mom was away on business, I would be the one to cook and clean while he drove me around and made sure I got to where I needed to be. Sometimes it felt like I was the one taking care of him but we took care of each other. We make a good team. To this day, leaving him was one of the hardest things I have had to do.

It was rather cold for a typical day in Southern California, a brisk fifty degrees. I was standing curbside of the busy LAX terminal silently weeping as I walked into my brothers arms. As soon as I was enclosed in his arms, that’s when the real water works came. We were only going to be apart for three months, but at the time, it felt like forever. I was trying to memorize the way his arms felt around me, the way he smelt, the soft reassuring voice that was telling me everything was going to be alright. It was one of the very few times I’ve ever seen my brother cry. He’s always been the emotionally stable one, the one to comfort me and he always seems like he always has everything together. But that one moment in time, he needed me as much as I needed him.

Since I’ve been gone we Facetime about once a day and we text throughout the day. One of my biggest fears was the unraveling of the relationship we had built, but since I’ve been enrolled at Hebron Academy, we’ve only gotten closer. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss him with every ounce of my being because I most certainly do. When I found myself sitting on the plane with my head resting on the window with my headphones trying to tune out the world, that’s when I realized that I was wishing we could go back to before we started growing up, when the only thing we had to worry about was what was on Disney channel and when the next time we could go out and play street hockey. That’s when I knew that the summer was over.