Goodbyes are hard.
Everybody knows that, right? I thought I did, but recently I’ve found out just how hard they can be. My husband, Eric, and I have lived in Southern Nevada for almost six years. We enjoy it. We both have good jobs in our chosen careers. We’re dog parents. We make enough money to live comfortably, and we live in a place with great weather most of the time.
Despite that, we recently decided to give it all up and move to Cody, Wyoming.
Why? Because families are important even when goodbyes are hard.
In April of 2020, my sister-in-law, Jennifer, died unexpectedly. She was young, healthy and worked hard to provide for her young daughter. The night before she died, she and Eric texted a little bit about the new wheels he’d just put on his truck. The next morning she was gone.
That goodbye is one of the most difficult I’ve ever experienced, and it set Eric and I off in a new direction. From that moment on we were physically in Nevada, but our hearts were with our family in Cody. It was hard saying goodbye to my in-laws whenever they would call. It was hard seeing them working to raise their granddaughter when they should be retiring. It was hard seeing all three of them grieve and hurt and not being there to help. My mother-in-law would tell us she was praying that God would bring her some help because she felt like she couldn’t handle any more.
So we started praying, too. We didn’t know exactly what to pray for, but we just prayed God would work the situation out. Then one day, we thought what if we were supposed to be the help his parents needed.
I mean, I didn’t want to leave what we had here, especially for a small town where it snows a lot. But deep down I knew it was what we needed to do because our family needed us.
When we made the decision, some of our friends thought we were crazy to leave, but many thought it was the right move.
Why? Because even in the small, cold, wintry weather town of Cody, Wyoming, families are important.
So that decision has led me to another difficult goodbye. My goodbye to the Boulder City community. I’ve spent the last five years getting to know you and working to keep you informed of all the things going on. I’ve had a blast covering Spring Jamboree, high school graduation, the Damboree and all the Christmas activities as well as sharing your stories.
I didn’t have as much fun covering council meetings, but it was an honor keeping everyone informed of what the city’s leaders were spending taxpayer dollars on and keeping the officials accountable for what they said and promised.
As stressful as being a journalist can be, even for a small rural paper, leaving my job at the Boulder City Review is hard to do. Every day I did my best to share what was important, and I worked hard to show all sides of every story I wrote.
I’m not sure if another newspaper job is in my future. There is a paper in Cody, but Eric and I both plan to focus on helping our family. It will involve lots of home repair work, dealing with the school system for our niece and just being there for them.
So this could also be a goodbye to my career as a journalist. If indeed it is, I’m very thankful it ended here in Boulder City because it’s been a “dam” good time.
The opinions expressed above belong solely to the author and do not represent the views of the Boulder City Review. They have been edited solely for grammar, spelling and style, and have not been checked for accuracy of the viewpoints.
Contact reporter Celia Shortt Goodyear at cgoodyear@bouldercityreview.com or at 702-586-9401. Follow her on Twitter @csgoodyear.