Author’s Note: “Departures” explores the leave-taking that people often confront in their life journey, be it career-related, a redefining of one’s self or of a relationship, or a trading of the past and present for some hoped-for future. In this story, one man on the cusp of retirement has his notions of self, of happiness, and of what constitutes fulfillment shaken to the core. He finally experiences transcendence, once when he rediscovers compassion and again when he frees himself from the constraints that kept him focused on the ground beneath him instead of on the stars above... [Continue Story]
