“When they desired him to tarry longer with them, he consented not;
but bade them farewell..” (Acts 18:20-21)
Hello Goodbye:
Yes, I know, it sounds like the Beatle’s song from a generation ago, but I
am not speaking in this letter to you about conflict in a love relationship.
You have a most interesting history. The earliest record we have of using
you was in a letter written in 1573 by Gabriel Harvey where he used the
word “godbwyes.” The understanding is that “Godbweye” is a contraction of
the phrase “God be with you.” Over time, the ‘good’ was substituted for
“God.” So, when we say ‘goodbye’ to someone, we are saying, in short,
“God be with you.”
You have many colloquialisms which we have adopted over the years to try
to take the sting off of leaving someone. “So long” first showed up in a Walt
Whitman poem about death. If we are informal with someone we say,
“catch you later,’ ‘have a good one’ (which was born in the late 1970s), see
ya, todeloo, and, in our short-cut age of texting ttyl (talk to you later).
Some use slang to say your name: hasta la vista, later, cya, peace out,
take it easy, and, a Southern will say, ‘keep it between the ditches.’
A formal goodbye which can be traced back to the English Bible is the word
“farewell.” Paul said this to the Ephesians after spending three years there
establishing a church. When he told them they would not see him again,
they wept sore. He bid them farewell – or, I pray you have a safe journey.
Goodbyes are not easy. It doesn’t matter if is for a separation for a little
while, or if, as in Paul’s case, it is a situation where you will never see the
person again in this life time. Because of the nature of our lives, we never
know when you are speaking the last words we will say to someone, or the
last words we will hear uttered from their lips. You are our signal that the
telephone conversation is over and we are going to hang up.
The worst pain you give us is when you are so abrupt: the friendship is
severed, the marriage dissolved, the relationship wrecked. It is worst when
it is like an assassin’s bullet that we didn’t see coming. We could not brace
ourselves for the impact. We were not able to emotionally prepare
ourselves for the havoc that would follow. A person walks into his boss’s
office and is told he is being terminated – Goodbye. It is like a glass
shattering into a hundred pieces and we are left to clean up a mess. The
edges are sharp and painful. It leaves us cut and bleeding from the
upheaval that such events create in our lives. A spouse walks in and
informs us that he or she desires to break up the marriage. A boyfriend or
girlfriend breaks up with someone who loves them. Or worst of all,
someone has to make an announcement to you that someone you love is
dead. Your appearance in our lives can be heart-wrenching.
Goodbyes to our children are painful too. They grow up. We would not wish
for anything different. They go off to kindergarten for the first time, and the
drive away from the school is like a funeral procession for the parents.
Before we know it, they are graduating high school and another Goodbye
as they go off to college. Even though they will come home again, it is a
change that we have to accept that nothing will be the same again. Parents
face the ‘empty nest’ because of the Goodbyes of their children.
Each of us come to a time when we must stand before the grave and say
Goodbye to loved one. This situation can cause such anguish seems to be
unbearable at times. Goodbyes, even if our faith allows us to adopt the
sure hope we will see them again, are difficult and unwelcomed. If we had
our choice, all our Goodbyes would be pleasant ones, but that is not for this
time and place. You are part of our lives, and we must accept you as a
guide that will help us grow in our faith and trust in the One who directs the
affairs of human beings.
Many of my fellow travelers have made comments about your effect on our
lives. One of my favorites was said by Ritu Ghatourey: “Goodbyes make
you think. They make you realize what you’ve had, what you’ve lost, and
what you’ve taken for granted.” It is undeniable that you do cause a tinge of
sadness to overshadow our hearts at just the thought of Goodbye.
Sometimes you get such a grip on us that we don’t fully enjoy the present
moment because we are dreading the time when it ends. It is one of our
biggest short-comings as human beings, but I think that it also shows us
that deep within our nature lies a hunger for a land where we will never say
Goodbye again.
The comic character, Charlie Brown, created by Charles M. Schulz once
said, “Goodbye always makes my throat hurt.” An unknown person said,
“We started with a simple hello, but we end with a complicated goodbye.”
Charles Dickens wrote, “The pain of parting is nothing compared to
meeting again.”
So, Goodbye, you are preordained in our lives. We cannot avoid
confronting you. We cannot skip out on facing you. The best we can do is
try to prepare ourselves when we have to say Goodbye. How do we do
that? Obviously, our faith helps us in knowing we will see loved ones again.
Embracing you by understanding that the next time we have a reunion with
those to whom we have said Goodbye will be much sweeter because we
passed through the valley of Farewell.
Let me close my letter to you on a bright note because you are not always
foreboding and menacing. We do welcome some Goodbyes. We believe
that one day we will say Goodbye to all the things associated with Death
(funeral parlors, mortuaries, graveyards, etc.). Goodbye to all things
associated with Sickness (hospitals, medicine, blood pressure machines,
viruses and vaccines). Goodbye to all things associated with Pain (trouble,
turmoil, tribulation and tears). Goodbye to all things associated with
emotional Stresses (loneliness, depression, anxiety, and despair). We will
even say Goodbye to Faith, which will be bittersweet. Faith has become
our constant companion, but we will no longer need her services because
our faith will be sight. Now we see through a glass darkly, which requires
us to have faith because things are sometimes murky, but then we will see
face-to-face. Faith will fade into a distance as a sweet memory of days of
yore.
Our last goodbye is reserved for you. So let us practice it now:
Goodbye, Goodbye.
© Stan Vespie 2023
Comments