The farewell celebration honors the past; ordinary invitations help make room in the future.

A leaving party is a good thing and a complete sentence about what has already happened. It says the years mattered, and then it ends, and the person walks into a diary that is suddenly emptier than it was. What holds a friendship afterwards is not the ceremony but the unremarkable invitations that follow: a walk, a coffee, dinner on Thursday.

If someone in your life has recently left something, put one ordinary plan in the calendar with them. Make it a specific day rather than a general offer. Then do it again next month, because the second one proves the first.