Saying Goodbye


I've never been good at goodbyes. Some refuse to say goodbye, but chose to say 'see ya later' or some other evasive euphemism. Yet we all have to face departure and every parting holds the possibility of being the last. It is only by G-d's grace that most of the time we don't have an inkling that it will be the last time we get to see or talk to that special one. However, it is the most final of goodbyes, the known ones, that cost. They require a piece of your heart and in exchange leave a memory.

It's those memories that I pray never fade, and I hate it when they do...oh G-d, how I hate it when they inevitably fade.

In my efforts to verbalize a farewell, I look to others who have struggled before me. No one is immune to the heartbreak of a final goodbye, it is true.

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends.
~Richard Bach

Man's feelings are always purest and most glowing in the hour of meeting and of farewell.
~Jean Paul Richter

To die and part is a less evil; but to part and live, there, there is the torment.
~George Lansdowne

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.
~Robert Southey

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.
~George Eliot

You and I will meet again
When we're least expecting it
One day in some far off place
I will recognize your face
I won't say goodbye my friend
For you and I will meet again
~Tom Petty

Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would I'd never leave.
~A.A. Milne

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
~Kahlil Gibran

The best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart.
~Alan Alda

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
~Gilda Radner

Goodbye, goodbye, I hate the word. Solitude has long since turned brown and withered, sitting bitter in my mouth and heavy in my veins.
~R.M. Grenon

Comments

Ari C'rona said…
I share your sadness at 'good-byes', my dearest of friends...
Stacy Christian said…
This kind of parting is perhaps the worst evidence of the fallen-ness of this world. Everything about it feels wrong. My heart is breaking with you, Dear Friend.