Homecoming and saying good-bye

My youngest daughter just returned from four months studying abroad. Her homecoming was full of squeals and hugs and tears and kisses. As it so happened, I was just returning from a week at the beach, a yearly retreat I take with nine other writing women. Her grand homecoming was my smaller one, and both all-around joyful.

But...

There's always a but, isn't there? Coming home meant leaving something behind. In her case, it was France and traveling Europe, and friends she will likely never see again; in mine, it was beloved friends I see only once a year, the turbulent tranquility of the sea, and a week of autonomy a wife and mother of four gets only very rarely. Coming home means saying good-bye.

One of my favorite homecomings occurs in Return of the King (movie.) The Hobbits return to the Shire riding fine ponies and wearing their finery; returning heroes even if no one actually knew what it was they did. In the movie version, Saruman and Wormtongue hadn't gotten to the Shire. Life continued on almost as if Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin never left.

Our four heroes sit in the pub where they once sang and drank as obliviously as those all around them, they look at one another with a glance that says, "We will never be the same." There is a sweetness to it, and there is sorrow. Once out in the world, after seeing and experiencing all they had and saying good-bye to those friends made along the way, there really was no coming home again.

Homecomings can be poignant, joyous, disastrous, sorrowful, frustrating, hilarious or all of the above. Sometimes coming home is how the story starts, and sometimes it's how it ends. Wherever it appears, it is a transitional moment, a pivot in time, and always important. In my novel, A Time Never Lived, releasing at the end of this month, the story revolves around homecomings of all sorts. One character returns home from exile to face consequences she thought she would never have to. Another character's homecoming brings unexpected joy, and yet another pair returns only to find a new adventure awaiting them. In each case, it meant saying good-bye to family, friends, and experiences that, once had, made going home to what once was impossible.

Have you ever thought of homecomings this way? I don't know that I ever have; and if I have, it was only subconsciously. It got me thinking about other homecomings, and why they touched me, and how they connected to the necessary good-byes. I keep thinking of the end scene in The Hunger Games (movie)--I won't put any spoilers here in the body of this post. It was magnificently done, the joy and the sorrow, that sense of never being able to truly come home again. It touched me on many levels, and sticks with me even after several weeks.

And then there's the homecomings that never happen, but are striven for throughout the story. Again, I won't put spoilers here, but I do welcome them in comments, because I can think of a few of these--and I'm getting chills doing so.

So now that I've got you thinking, I want to hear about the homecomings and good-byes that really stick with you, whether in movies or books, plays or operas, your own work or by someone else.
~Terri