“dovidjenja” FROM Mrs Porovic

Despite my fairly nomadic existence as a child, I have never been a great fan of goodbyes. I feel them too much. The illusion of control I try to exert over how I respond to the challenges of life rarely holds if I truly attempt to face an ending. I am not particularly proud of this, but I suspect that it is a human response, perhaps defined by the proper goodbyes I have failed to say in the years gone by. 

I have found over the years that endings have a habit of defining relationships and the way that we pack up our memories. Too often, I have breezed past these moments, subconsciously reassured that they will return at some as yet unknown future time and I will be able to say all the things I need to say then. 

I blame my mother tongue for this. The word goodbye in Serbian, “dovidjenja ”, literally means “until I see you next”. It would appear on reflection that I was born into a culture that literally struggles to confront and define endings!

Of course, you might say to me that if I don't like goodbyes all that much, I could minimise them by leaving less often! And I have thought about this and the safety and comfort offered by adopting this approach. But, whether we want them to or not, things change, people leave, we change, and so goodbyes are an inevitable part of life. Endings of one thing, open doorways to the beginnings of another, and our job, as much as is possible, is to glide between them, gently closing one door and opening the other with all the strength and confidence we can muster from the experiences that we have had so far.

Most goodbyes in life we do not see coming and cannot prepare for. Or we see them coming all too well and still feel unprepared when the moment comes. 

In reality, I have realised that the act of saying goodbye is not a single moment but the way that we choose to experience and live a thing from its very beginning. Or, failing to do that, how well we understand ourselves and how much we appreciate our growth and transformation from the moment we began to the moment when we depart.

I feel so incredibly lucky that Rossall has been a part of mine and my family's life for 7 years. It also brings me incredible joy and a sense of total privilege that we have been a small part in its life and existence, too. I have never felt so convincingly that I belonged to something the way that I have done here, so much so that it has totally redefined what I look for from a place where I work and where I live. There is a magic and a warmth here that is carried and owned by all the people who come to Rossall and invest more than just their time in being a part of something special and worth preserving. It is your home if you choose to make it so, whether you are here for 3 months or 25 years.

Over the time I have been here, I have been endlessly inspired and humbled by the people I have met, students I have taught, and colleagues I have worked alongside. It would not be a fulsome goodbye if I did not also concede that I have made any of a number of mistakes too and let people down in ways that I am aware and unaware of, and of course wish I had not. I have had the privilege across these years to work to build on and nurture something I totally believe in and to watch it flourish as generation after generation of pupils and teachers have added their own special magic that has inspired all of us and encouraged us to become better people. Better human beings, as Mr Crombie would say.

So thank you for letting me be a part of this story, and thank you for the way you have each committed yourselves to this very special community that we all get to be a part of. Thank you for your kindness and your warmth, for what you have been for each other, for what you will continue to be for the future of Rossall as yet unwritten.

So, from a person who is terrible at saying goodbyes well, I wish each and every one of you every happiness in your lives. May you flourish and grow, may your dreams come true and may you become all that you were always meant to be. Rossall will always be a place where you can belong, and I hope that in the time that you are here, despite the more than occasional howling wind and driving rain, you feel the warmth of a community that I believe to be unrepeatable and I feel so so lucky to have called my home. 

- Mrs Dina Porovic, Senior Deputy Head (Pastoral)