Less than a month ago I posted It’s Not Goodbye! How much can change in a month. Mia’s job fell through, Dave’s job was still up in the air (is still up in the air), and our friends packed all their worldly goods in a race against time. They shipped their car. Managed to get both cats certified to fly. Got plane tickets. A hotel room for the last two nights. And left.

When Dave retired from the Army we did what is known as a European Out. Basically, it means retire out of the Army while stationed in Germany. It shouldn’t make much of a difference, but it does. The difference is huge and overwhelming. Our goal was to not disrupt the kids schooling. Especially Tessa. Tessa who is in her junior year, and after years of struggling in the German school system, was doing so great.

While Dave had multiple units wanting him, I mean he’s a catch, actually getting a job is tied up in more red tape than we ever imagined. Dave not only has 30+ Army experience, he’s already acclimated to Germany and it’s culture. That’s huge. Every soldier, civilian, government employee that’s transferred here takes at least a year to get their feet on solid ground. It’s a different country. It’s not easy. But Dave? Dave was already here in Germany. He has a house. He speaks German. Dave can hit the ground running. This made him very employable. Except for the red tape.

We knew there was red tape. We went into the job search knowing there’d be red tape. We planned ahead. The one thing we thought would be the hardest, the waiver (for the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, which re-instituted the 180 day “Cooling Off” restriction on hiring military retirees into government positions), turned out to be the easiest to overcome. Dave was very needed here. There are many positions to fill and not everyone wants to move to Germany. Away from family. To a new country. Dave did. Dave was here.

Everything else in the hiring process was worse. The unit quickly decided they wanted Dave. They decided in October. Since October we’ve been working with, begging, the local HR to get Dave’s paperwork done so he can start. The unit has been begging. All to no avail. As it stands now, Dave can return to Germany as a tourist on April 1. Then he has 90 days to continue to beg for a job that desperately needs him. That desperately wants him. That he is more than qualified for. That he cannot get a visa for. I am so angry and frustrated. I miss Dave.

Mia & Drew have been watching us struggle and fight for this. They are in the same boat we are. Drew too did a European out. Their goal, our goal. No break in schooling for their kids. Like us, like me, Mia is an EU citizen. Like us, their struggle to be employed here has been overwhelmingly difficult. They decided keeping the family together was more important than the kids school. They had additional factors, most notably they had to move out of on-base housing into a tough rental market, with no job offer on the table.

Last Friday on a cold, gray, rainy afternoon I met them in the PX (on post shopping exchange) parking lot. I was picking up Kami so she & Tess could have one last weekend to say goodbye. Mia & I barely spoke. We just looked at each other, glanced away, and cried. Tears of anger. Frustration. Sadness.

On the drive home Kami & Tess (and Dane) giggled in the van. Sang along with favorite songs. Acted completely as if this wasn’t it. They kept it up all weekend. I heard them watching Voltron season five, giggling and squealing like teenage girls. In their defense, they are teenage girls.

Sunday I bundled them up into the car, to drive Kami to Frankfurt to join her family, to fly to the states. This time they didn’t giggle. They’d stayed up all night and both of them crashed. Sleeping hard. Sleeping is also my way to avoid hard things. They broke my heart.

I stopped halfway in Heidelberg. I wanted to take some final photo’s of the girls with a really real German background. One last keepsake. One last memory. Heidelberg has a beautiful, big, castle that’s easily photographed from a fantastic old bridge. You can’t see it from the autobahn, but it’s only a 10-minute detour.

Every picture, and I took over a hundred, turned out beautiful. I cried editing them. I cried choosing some to share. I cried saying goodbye.

Goodbye’s suck.