Maybe. . .

Well. . . maybe Thomas Wolf was right: You can't go home again.

But just maybe you can. I mean for short visits among friends and colleagues with whom you've spent many years working together, caring about each other, watching over each other, helping each other struggle to make sense out of happenings, helping each other survive and grow.

Perhaps the truth is that you can go home for short visits -- which is not like going home to stay. Nor is it likely you'd want to. In the first place, nothing's the same. The situations have changed. And those changes have altered the people. Many have left. Those who've stayed have adjusted to new realities. You no longer fit as you once did. The good part about that is you can express interest in your old work-mates. You can draw them out with questions, learn about the changes. It's always easier to interact with people when you get them talking, when you put them in the middle of the conversation. I'm getting good at that these days.

Early this week I went to a big retirement celebration for the dean of the College of Education. He shared the event with the retiring dean of the College of Nursing and Health Science. So the event was a rich mixture of professors from both colleges, plus a broad selection of central administrative leaders and service personnel. A large number of central administration I've known for years. Many of them have taken my leadership courses over the years, and I think of them as close colleagues, if not close friends. Hard to sort that out. . . enough to say we've worked together a long time, and have liked each other for many years.

There was good wine, too. And a fine buffet loaded with a rich selection of canapes. Even some heavier stuff like barbecued chicken and beef strips on skewers. People stood around in tight groups nibbling and offering toasts. . .to the retiring deans and to each other. Nice white wine. Nice food, nice people. A virtual flood of warmth and ambiance.

The formal ceremony was short and sweet. The deans sat comfortably in rocking chairs while a parade of carefully selected speakers honored them appropriately -- some well-earned praise, some funny stories, some expressions of good wishes and gratitude, tinged lightly with regret. Or perhaps I only projected regret, because I've recently gone through several disconcerting phases of early retirement myself. Finding new purpose for one's days is at least. . .challenging.

It's difficult to let go of collegial relationships. It's even more difficult to let go of daily encounters with friends. It's difficult to relinquish shared endeavors and responsibilities. You spend your life building meaningful work relationships. Then one day the shared work is gone, and you realize how much the work bound you to others, provided the functional reasons you belonged among these others.

I suppose it's true: meaningful work is based as much upon shared purpose as upon anything else. Most of us spend our productive lives working with others to create something good for still other people. The antique hymn notwithstanding, shared work is the "tie that binds."

Kahlil Gibran's lines from "On Work" come to mind:

Life is indeed darkness, save when there is urge;
And all urge is blind, save when there is knowledge;
And all knowledge is vain, save when there is work;
And all work is empty, save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself
to yourself, and to one another. . . .

Few things are more frightening than the end of shared work. Perhaps losing a loved-one is more frightening. But still, loved-ones are related to the business of making family, of making love -- which I argue is the central shared purpose of life. Don't think that with the phrase making love I am talking about sexual intercourse. I'm talking about social intercourse, the means by which we skillfully and artfully develop valued relationships.

Emily Dickinson comes to mind:

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third even to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting's all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

At best, a retirement party is a fearful place because it signals a parting of ways. It signals the end of important work we've long-shared with those we've come think of as friends. Here's the fearful challenge:

Shared work produces joy.
And without joy we die!