SAYING goodbye is one of the most important things that we should learn these days. Life has always been finite, and the pandemic has simply reminded us of this. The pandemic has not changed anything with the reality of death; it is just that we are not ready to accept or embrace that in certain situations it may come earlier than expected.
The reason why someone’s departure hurts a lot is that it happens at a time when we are not prepared. In the pre-pandemic years, we felt that time and space were within our control. This, unfortunately, is no longer true these days (or we thought so highly of ourselves). Anyone can go, and this can happen anytime.
In the article “The Sacredness of Saying Goodbye”, Jesuit Matt Briand reminds us of the importance of learning how to say goodbye. In saying goodbye, the author explains, comes “a sudden realization that there is something of this person that is beyond my knowledge and escapes what I have been able to capture.” Goodbyes awaken us from our over-assumptions or presumptions about persons, forgetting that in each and every being, there is always a deeper mystery that we can discover each day.
One thinks that he knows his mother so well, but with impending death, one would realize that “the mother” has some more to reveal of herself as a person beyond her role of motherhood. In the words of Briand: “[t]here is a life, a future, an inner depth that is separate from me, and so this person whom I thought I knew so well suddenly becomes a mystery. And from that mystery comes their dignity and strangeness.”
Another striking line in the essay underscores our tendency to “take for granted” the “presence” of persons in our lives: friends, family, and others whom we know well, and more so our natural tendency “to reduce others to our knowledge of them, especially those with whom we spend the most time.” There is truth therefore in that often repeated statement too much familiarity breeds contempt.
When people seem so common and ordinary to us, their aura also seems diminished. Sometimes, we would no longer give that level of importance first accorded to them. Even those persons we love so dearly may even lose their dignity in the face of utility; it seems nothing mysterious is left in them. But this is something that we must overcome. The reality of departures and death should make us rethink the importance of, to borrow, again, some words from the Briand: “awe and wonder” that should allow us to “catch a glimpse” of each person’s “sacredness and transcendent beauty.”
Those who experience isolation due to Covid-19 should not find this discussion difficult to resonate. One must have strongly felt how difficult it was to live a life with so much uncertainty – not knowing what will happen next and more so not knowing if one still has enough time to say goodbye. Sadly, not everyone these days can part ways with proper closure. Reflecting these things in light of my own experiences, allow me to paraphrase what our Jesuit writer, whose essay I am thankful for, says:
“Saying goodbye will continue to be difficult. As long as we love, there will be no avoiding the sadness of parting.” But we have “to accept these frequent partings and the accompanying sadness with humble gratitude.” We should “see the sacred when saying goodbye.” Life no matter how short should make us feel that everything is “a privilege” . . . “to dwell for a little bit in the other’s mystery.” That though things in this world give us pain still some things are “worth the sadness.”