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Departure: A Final Goodbye

he next morning was a brief final session. We had to head to the
airport early to fly the Archbishop to yet another funeral of one of
his dear friends. So many of the greats were leaving us.
We sat back in the warm pool of light that had enveloped us all week,
and got our mikes connected. I thought about how the Archbishop was in
his eighties and how the Dalai Lama was joining him in this ninth decade
of life. We were all reflecting on the birthday celebration the day before
at the school and how these two elders had shared their hard-won wisdom
with the students and found hope in the next generation. We all receive a
transmission from our role models and mentors, and we all pass it along
to those who come after. This was the goal of our project together.
I was sitting across from the Archbishop and was staring at his
beautiful, loving face, which had become so familiar over the last decade
of collaboration and friendship. He has become a second father and a
beloved mentor. I thought of his battle with prostate cancer and how slow
the cancer had been to respond to the last round of experimental drugs.
We were worried about how long we would have him, not just all those
who knew and loved him but the world that still needed him and his
moral voice.
The Archbishop’s ability to travel had been severely restricted by his
doctors, and he had at one time said he was not going to travel outside of
South Africa again. This made his decision to come to Dharamsala all the
more extraordinary and unlikely to be repeated. Because the South
African government would not grant the Dalai Lama a visa, we all knew
—most especially the two of them—that this trip might be their last time
together.
Death, as the Archbishop had reminded us, is inevitable. It is the way
life should be. A beginning. A middle. And an end. It is this cycle that
makes life precious and beautiful. However, it does not make the sorrow