A phase of your life comes to an easily defined and well-publicized end, and you’re around for the opportunity to move on, something not everyone is lucky enough to be.
A roomful of friends whose bond will last forever are there for you on that day, nearly five dozen of them, the type of friends with whom you’ve spent spend entire days for entire weeks for more months than not, for what’s been nearly half your your life.
You have your kids by your side, and millions of fans you’ve never met are there for you, too, in other rooms all over the country, at least, the same rooms where you’d made their lives better many days without thinking about that, taking their minds off their own stresses and giving them joy for a minute or more here and there, and they’re there sitting down to watch you talk about moving on, and everyone of them remembers you well at that moment, and the truth is for many of us that level of appreciation got turned up another couple notches on that day.