Endings, beginnings and hand-washings

If you work in a school or nursery, this time of year is always full of endings. 
Children moving onto primary school or secondary school or taking their first steps into adulthood.  Staff moving on to new jobs or new countries or new lives   
The air is crackling with a strange mixture of excitement and sadness, laughter and tears. Every year at the Nursery and Children's Centre we watch our 4 year olds skip through the door into a world of classrooms and school uniform.  And even though they don't know it, they are leaving behind the first part of their childhood and even though we should be used to it, it is always hard to see them go (most of them!)

Endings are strange things. 
Part of the reason you start reading a book or watching a film is because you want to know  how it will end. 
But often when you reach the end, it is  unfulfilling  or sad or confusing. 
A memorable ending is the greatest gift a writer or film- maker can give you. 
Memorable endings are what we spend our lives striving towards. 
When you leave somewhere, you can't help hoping that you have made a difference, that you won't be forgotten, that without you there , something will be imperceptibly ( or perceptibly) different. 
When you move house, you hope that whoever lives there next will keep something of you in it: some wallpaper, the kitchen tiles, the shelves in the bedroom.
 It's the same when you leave a job, you hope that something you did made such a difference that a little part of you will always be there. 
And when you leave life, you cant help hoping  that the world will be a lesser place for the lack of you.

The truth is that our lives are a constant stream of endings. 
The end of school, the end of childhood, the end of being young, free and single,the end of work,  the end of breakfast, the end of X factor, the end of the day. 
But every time something ends, something else begins.
When school ends, the holidays begin.
When childhood ends, adulthood begins.
When you stop being young, free and single, it is usually because you have met your partner or become a parent.
When work ends, the fun begins.
When the  X factor ends, normal life begins again.
When the day ends, night ( and best of all ) sleep begins. 

" What we call the beginning is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from."
                   From Little Gidding, T S Eliot

And that's why endings are so confusing. 
It's hard to know how you feel: happy, sad, excited, scared, everything, all at the same time.
One of my friends and her family are leaving England for good next weekend. Before they go, they are opening up their house and letting people buy everything they have left.
"It's a nice," says my friend, " to think of things we have owned scattered across friends' homes. Like a little part of us is staying behind."
But the truth is, it's not the things themselves but the memories they evoke, that keeps those we care about with us.
The memories of evenings spent laughing or days spent gossiping. 
The memories of shopping or drinking or wandering unfamiliar streets together.
The memories of nights on star drenched beaches, sharing dreams.
The memories of normal days, made special laughter.

And as long as our days are filled with moments worth treasuring, then real life will always be better than fiction because the ending will never disappoint.

My friend who is leaving the country and I were sitting together in Nursery the other day.  I was teaching in the kitchen where children were choosing different topping to spread on crackers. 

 A dark eyed boy with sticking up hair came in from the garden, sweaty and covered in sand. He sat down at the table and looked expectantly at the plate of crackers.

" Wash your hands and then you can have a cracker," I said.
The boy stared at me and continued sitting at the table.
" First wash your hands, then a cracker," I explained again.
Slowly the boy stood up and raising his hands, spat into them until they were dripping with saliva.  And once he had rubbed them together and dried them on his shorts, he fetched a plate and sat down again at the table.
For a while my friend and I couldn't speak, tears of laughter were running down our cheeks.  
She recovered first and found her serious face.
" I think you need to use water from the tap and soap to wash your hands," she told him.
For a second the boy stared at her, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Standing up, he started walking toward the sink but half way there he let out a blood curdling scream, rubbed his saliva and sand-covered hand in his hair and raced into the garden.
" I don't think he likes washing his hands," gasped my friend through our laughter.

And that's it. 
That's the memory.
A little boy with saliva covered hands and sharing tears of laughter with a friend.
A good ending to take with you to a new beginning.