Next Tuesday, Feb. 11, I will attend my final Geezer Forum. But it won’t be the final Geezer Forum you can attend. As was announced in Wednesday’s Daily Bee, the Graves family will be moving next month to Hillsboro, Ore., to be close to our son and his family. 

Next week’s forum will be a Geezer Forum celebration in our usual spot, the Community Room at Umpqua Bank. As usual, we’ll meet 2:30-4 p.m. I have limited knowledge of what to expect since our planning team — now with Lisa Bond the new host of the Geezer Forum — 0have things planned out. I assume there will be tasty desserts, a few speeches (I’m working on mine), and good fellowship as we get a chance to say good-bye to one another. 

The Geezer Forum has been such a joy to organize and experience over the last 12 years. I will take so much to Hillsboro that I’ve learned through the Geezer Forum. I can only hope you all have learned some things about aging along our common way. 

Since this is my final Dear Geezer column to appear in The Daily Bee, I feel the need to put our moving to Hillsboro in a fuller context: “It’s easy to say hello, but much harder to say goodbye.” This truth-piece works at so many different levels, only starting with our moving from our beloved community of 36-plus years. 

We moved here so I could be pastor of the Sandpoint United Methodist Church. After seven years, I chose to take a sabbatical; we then decided to leave parish work and settle in Sandpoint. I became a geriatric social worker and we made a wonderful life as participants in our community. 

It was easy to meet new people, from our church family and beyond. For us, saying hello is pretty easy to do. And we’ll get that opportunity again as we move into a retirement community in downtown Hillsboro. That’s the exciting part. 

Not so exciting is having to say goodbye to so many people in Sandpoint and Bonner County that we’ve come to care for and deeply appreciate. So much harder to say “goodbye.” 

The rhythm of saying hello and goodbye in this instance runs parallel to the hello-goodbye rhythm in every moment of our lives. And it doesn’t seem to get any easier for older adults. I’d like to think with more experience of hello-goodbye in so many circumstances, we geezers-in-training would be able to do both more easily. But it doesn’t work that way. 

Part of being a geezer-in-training is that we need to keep learning how to let go of some hellos in order to learn how to let go of what we need to say goodbye to. Are you like me — so reluctant to open my closed hand in order to let go of something important, even precious, to me? 

I believe each of us has had to dance the rhythmic dance of hello-goodbye, sometimes in heart-wrenching moments, grieving moments. Sometimes that dance is fairly simple. Sometimes that dance is overwhelming and traumatic. But the dance happens within each of us, doesn’t it. 

Maybe a good thing to remember is that part of the dance doesn’t have to be experienced alone. Who do you have who is ready to dance with you when you need a partner? I hope you have someone. 

And at a fairly superficial level, I hope you know that Geezer Forum is privileged to be your dance partner in whatever ways that might happen. So next Tuesday, maybe our gathering at the Umpqua Bank Community Room is a dance of sorts, even for 90 minutes. Come, be my partner as I hope I’ve been your partner for these 12 years. 

I’ll be so pleased to introduce Lisa Bond as the forum’s new host. I know she’s eager to be your partner as well. 

Peace, geezers-in-training. Keep learning about your aging experiences. 

Paul Graves, M.Div., has been the lead geezer-in-training for Elder Advocates, a consulting ministry on aging issues. Contact Paul at 208-610-4971 or elderadvocates@nctv.com.