Tag: Grieving

How Many Ways Are There to Say Goodbye?

Salvador Dali, Untitled (Dream of Venus)

I confess that I do not have a ready answer to this question. In fact, I am better at asking questions than supplying answers, if you have been reading my blogs for awhile. How could I possibly know how each of you defines a “good” goodbye? I’m pretty sure that all of us have received poor goodbye versions, but straight from my parenting book, let’s keep a focus on what to do, instead of what not to do. It just is a forward-thinking and healthier route.

I have checked online to see what others think about ways to say goodbye. I was struck by one way — “Peace out” — which I have never heard anyone use! According to a definition, it is “an informal and casual way to say goodbye, often used with a sense of finality.” I have had occasion to say goodbye recently to a number of people who I believe I will never see again; saying “peace out” would have seemed strange. Saying goodbye actually derives from “God be with ye,” shortened to “Godbwye,” before becoming today’s “goodbye.“ 

Here are some other goodbye versions that might have been useful if I had read about them earlier:

  • This is not goodbye, it’s thank you — express gratitude for your relationship and the time spent together, focusing the farewell on fond memories. 
  • “Remember me and smile, for it is better to forget than to remember me and cry”  (Dr. Seuss) — remembering the good times, find peace in each going their separate way.
  • “Farewell is like the end, but in my heart is the memory, and there you will always be” (Disney) — acknowledge the finality of the goodbye while maintaining the enduring nature of memories.

Say yes to memories, but the recognition that you may never see someone again is grieving territory. Colin Murray Parke, a British psychiatrist, coined this version: “The pain of grief…is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment.” In a recent discussion with others, one person made this insightful comment: when you have to say a significant goodbye, it brings up all of the other times you were in this situation and it feels sad all over again for those earlier goodbye times. There is grieving in the goodbyes in our lives and we are not fond of grieving. Do we expect everything to “last?” Well, yes.

Poetry can help us deal with the impermanence in life.

“As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever….” (from “Stages” by poet and novelist Herman Hesse, in his last novel, The Glass Bead Game (which won Hesse the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946).

Embrace impermanence and savor your ability to have significant relationships.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

405. How do you say goodbye to someone you may never see again?

406. When can you recall  “good” goodbyes?

Understand Compassion in Grieving

“I write to understand as much as to be understood,” explained Elie Wiesel, Romanian-American Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate. Isn’t this true for all writers? If writing is one’s career, there is motivation to put groceries on one’s table, but writing also is a powerful way to grasp and then share some deep understanding of a topic.

The tragic airline crash into Potomac River in Washington, DC grabbed people’s grief strings. An airplane carrying 64 individuals from Wichita, Kansas, and a helicopter carrying 3 soldiers collided just as the larger plane was preparing to land — on a crystal-clear evening. Undoubtedly, passengers were anticipating their meet-up with relatives and rides. Perhaps they were enjoying DC lights and sights. Aviation attorney and experienced pilot Arthur Wolk noted how numerous lights in this crowded airspace can conflict with flight instructions.

Soldiers in the helicopter were conducting a “routine training mission” to practice evacuating government officials if deemed necessary in an emergency. Instead of leading anyone to safety, the unthinkable occurred. Two days later a jet-ambulance crashed in Philadelphia, killing 7 and injuring 22 on the ground, a further tragedy. Smashed dreams and shattered families frighten even those without relationships with the victims. Encountering another’s trauma activates branches of trauma memories in one’s own life.

Journalist Rebecca Soffer, co-founder of online Modern Loss, is keenly aware of sudden death. She was 30 when her mother was killed in a car accident, one hour after giving Rebecca a ride from family camping. Then at age 34, Rebecca’s father died of a heart attack while on a cruise. Co-founder Gabrielle Birkner began her journalism career writing obituaries for a local newspaper. While 27-year-old Gabrielle was in the newsroom working on obituaries, she received unthinkable news that her father and stepmother were murdered in a home invasion. Both young adults sought companionship and compassion from those who might understand their grief.

Gabrielle interviewed psychiatrist M. Katherine Shear, founding director of Columbia University’s Center for Prolonged Grief at Columbia’s School of Social Work. Here is Dr. Shear’s definition of compassion: “Compassion is defined as the feeling of wanting to help someone who is hurting or suffering or has had to confront an untoward experience. Compassion means having a sympathetic awareness of that person’s pain along with a desire to ease the suffering.” She further pointed out that women are better at taking care of others than taking care of themselves. Often women feel that it is selfish to have self-compassion.   

Actually, one needs to hone their self-compassion to be capable of compassion for another’s suffering. It is possible to learn self-compassion skills. Allow yourself to address grief as a form of interdependent love, both for yourself and others. I can vouch for writing 3 things, large and small, in a daily-gratitude journal as one runway to land self-compassion.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

365. When have you used writing (in any form) to cope with grieving?

366. In what ways do you show compassion for others?