On Saying Goodbye
Image of a young femme presenting person wearing a pale pink blouse, laying in the green grass with their dark brown hair pooling under them, stretching their hand out toward the camera. Only their hand is in focus, where one can see a gold ring on their finger and pink nail polish.
Both as a therapist and as a human, I frequently think of goodbyes.
In a counseling practice goodbyes are what we are always working toward. A place where you are steady on your feet, grounded in your sense of self and feel ready to continue being out in the world as you are. It is a place where you realize you no longer need therapy, and you are ready to part ways. Changed, feeling more authentic, grateful to yourself for the hard work you have put into the process of unfurling and becoming.
In personal life goodbyes speckle our daily existence - from big losses of loved ones, fur babies and trees that are cut down in our neighborhood to the loss of a favorite place to get our coffee, a transition to a new place to live, or a friendship that has come to a standstill.
And then there are bigger goodbyes yet. To a culture and a home you have known all your life when you immigrate, to a home no longer there due to war or genocide, to a version of our world we grew up relying on that no longer holds true.
An image of a field of grasses gently moving in the wind, oat and straw-colored, framed in the top two thirds by a pale blue sky with whispy clouds barely visible.
Goodbyes come in many different flavors: acidic due to its burn, sweet thanks to the love and gratitude that is there, bitter because being left behind is so lonely.
Not to mention the finality of goodbyes hurt in ways that are hard to describe in words. A squeeze somewhere in the heart area. A prickling of tears behind the eyes. A heaviness that settles on the shoulders like an invisible hand.
A sense of something never again happening just like that, an ethereal quality of the present moment sharply reminding us of what is now gone.
Goodbyes are full of grief, just as they are full of love.
We grieve the loss of what was, the love that is still inside of us with no immediate outlet. Love for that cup of coffee that made you savor life, the pet who was a soul friend, or a home that nurtured your roots.
We carry love within us for the smallest things, the tiny joys that may not even cross our conscious awareness yet add to our life, making it more rich, colorful and enjoyable.
“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.”
As humans it is in our nature to attach: to people, to animals, to places, to spirit. When that attachment is disrupted, disturbed or destroyed, we frequently feel severed, abandoned and alone.
But what if goodbyes can also be good?
What if a goodbye can highlight the love without magnifying the loss? What if a goodbye can become a process of honoring and composting what no longer fits and allowing the rich soil to be fertile ground for something new to grow?
There are instances where that will not be possible. After all, when a goodbye is forced through a traumatic severing, we frequently have to hold the broken pieces and navigate how to sit with what is left.
But in cases where a different version of a goodbye is available, can we allow ourselves to write a new story of what it is like to part with someone or something?
I am thinking of a goodbye where we get to honor the love and acknowledge the loss as two simultaneous processes. In therapy, we frequently do this by rewriting goodbye stories into something we can feel bittersweet about rather than just bitter.
We do this first and foremost by acknowledging the love - love we have for ourselves and love we have for each other. We grieve the future where things will look different. We honor the pain that is present now. We open a window to an unfolding of something beautiful to come.
“My grief says that I dared to love, that I allowed another to enter the very core of my being and find a home in my heart. Grief is akin to praise; it is how the soul recounts the depth to which someone has touched our lives. To love is to accept the rites of grief.”
I hope next time you have to say goodbye, there is space in your life and your heart to root into the love that is inevitably present within. To remember the moments of good as much as to hold the sting of the loss. To allow the fullness of your humanity to be present through this undoubtedly messy, nuanced and multifaceted process that frequently marks our lives into two halves - before and after.
Remember that no matter how alone you may feel holding your loss, you are not. There is not a single human alive who has not been touched by a goodbye in a way that ached, whether it was a small scratch or a deep wound. Lean into the knowledge that we are all connected by our shared experience of loss, grief, and love. So much love.