The word that must not be spoken.

You can't make me say it. I won't.

How am I supposed to say it to the friend who taught me everything I know about making noodles and living as a Believer in a family dedicated to idols, who now sends frantic text messages: "are you still here? are you free? we must meet!"? Can I bear it?  Can she?

And can those words really form on my lips to the student who returns after a year away teaching to knock at my door and beg me join her for dinner as she sits starry eyed reminescing about the good old days when I was their best teacher and everyone agreed I was beautiful not only because of your dimples Ms. Kelly she asserts. When the one firm fact that she remembers about me is that I study the Word on Sundays can I really say to her what I don't want to say to anyone?

Who can expect me to say what needs to be said, what is soon coming, to the sisters who throw hours away just to have me over to the junky room where they live and teach me to cook things and promise to send me anything they can afford in the midst of their poverty from Lhasa, should I crave bags of tsampa and spice when I'm gone. She sat engrossed in the Book she'd dreamed about I'd only just now been able to give her, and I couldn't think of a less appropriate time to say it... so I gladly didn't.

I tried to say it to the friends over dinner, but my attempt was weak and they blew it off demanding yet another closing party. I was glad for that too because I nearly choked thinking about the words in my throat as I listened to their amusing banter and memorized their laughter, a vain attempt to save it for a gray day later. I bought a documentary about the history of your Father, one started, and I liked it, very good.

Can I help but to refuse to say it to the man who I know adjusted his glasses and coughed a little right before I answered the phone and he, ever too formal, invited me to try fish hot pot again. I hope you don't mind he mumbled nearly drowned out in my ecstatic agreement, no he will never hear those words from me, because I'm not going to say it.

And the nun who I've been trying to contact for days who called me on an unfamiliar phone number who upon hearing the news of my time line burst into near howls of unintelligible Tibetan though I didn't come anywhere close to saying it to her... would I even dream of it now?

What exactly do I tell the classrooms full of students who have faithfully attended and been my family and my pride for these three years, who have written me into their lives, introduced me to their families, taught me more about themselves than there is things to know about English, and kept all my most lonely moments at bay? I know what I won't say...

And you can be sure that my friend who promised to go oven shopping with me, who grabbed my arm at the school gate and demanded that I accompany her on a dinner date with a man whom you could feel the strange coming from as she totally ignored him and spoke to me in English the entire time saying Kelly you are my sunshine, my boat, my umbrella, you are my lucky... who's eyes I couldn't bear to look into as they filled with tears when I demanded that she come with me to the airport... you can be quite sure friends, she'll never hear me say it.

She won't and neither will my friends who I miss until I can see them the next week, nor the grocery family who give me free nearly everything, nor the beggar children who learned my name, nor the gate grandfather who thinks I'm related to him, nor anyone else because I'm not going to say it.

I will do it. I must. It is right. The way is my Father's.

But I'm not going to say it.