Saying Goodbye
Saying goodbye was a big deal in my family growing up. Making a short trip to the grocery store warranted hugs and kisses at the very least. The daily routine of leaving for school was accompanied by a ritual in which my mother held each of us tight and said, “Make good choices!” as we walked out the door. (When I was little, there was also an elaborate game of “I love you to the moon and back,” until the comparative distances became truly absurd.) Though we had Sunday night dinner with my grandparents every single week, the process of departing at the end of the evening for the ten-minute drive back to our house looked more like a tearful embarkation for a transatlantic voyage. My great-grandmother was famous for standing at the end of her driveway waving enthusiastically until she absolutely, positively could not see us any longer. Suffice to say, goodbyes are a big deal for my family.
Over the years, it has been interesting and salutary for me to learn that this is not so for every family. At friends’ houses, I would notice that siblings or parents would come and go to their various activities and nobody made a fuss. (Astonishing!) When some of my buddies were dropped off for school, or soccer practice, or even a sleepover, it was a simple and straightforward affair of hopping out of the car and getting to it. (Shocking!) In some families–including the one into which I married–even big exits for major trips don’t seem to elicit more than a cursory acknowledgement of the coming separation. (Once, when my in-laws were leaving our apartment in New Haven, Connecticut, to head back to Troy, Michigan, they simply collected the last of their bags and drove off. I was flabbergasted. It was a revelation to me. I didn’t know that kind of no-drama departure was possible!)
The ways are different, not better or worse. I have learned to appreciate the more matter-of-fact approach of Debby’s family–sort of a no muss, no fuss, “we’ll see one another again soon enough,” manner. There is an important theological truth manifested in this way of saying goodbye. At the heart of our faith is the declaration that God has loved us with a love that never ceases, and He has bound us together with bonds that cannot be broken. We trust this is so whenever someone steps into the next room, or runs over to the store, or goes on a long trip, or moves to a new state, or comes to their last breath. Even in the face of Death we declare that our separation from the people we love is not a final severing.
As John Donne once wrote to his beloved, urging her not to make a dramatic display of grief over their parting as he left on a journey,
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.1
If the connection between earthly lovers can be stretched by distance but never broken, then how much more wonderful and indissoluble is the bond that we have as Christians through the Spirit of the Living God? We may endure an expansion, but in Christ there will never be a breach between us. So what’s the point of making much of goodbye for now?
As I wrote above, I have learned to appreciate this view. But to appreciate something does not necessarily mean to adopt it. Goodbye remains a big deal for me. And thankfully my middle two children embrace this approach (pun very much intended). Fritz and Ruthie treat each goodbye as an occasion for abundant hugs and kisses and verbal expressions of the love we always feel in our hearts. On the other hand, my bookends–Ella and Myles–endure this approach, and that just barely. And in spite of their annoyed rolling of eyes and disgusted wiping-off of kisses, I still think there is something good, and true, and even holy in my own family’s way.
For even though we are confident that our days and seasons are in God’s hands, goodbyes hurt. It hurts to be separated from the people we love, even if the separation is silly and short like a quick trip to the grocery store. We know that in the changes and chances of this life nothing temporal is assured us. And we are reminded, even in small moments, of how little we truly control–of how much we must entrust to a loving Lord each minute of each day. If this is true for the small goodbyes, how much more is it true of the big separations when we cannot know when or whether we will see one another again? Why not take occasion to say the important things that are always felt but not always said?
Consider that Jesus himself took a long and careful time saying goodbye to his friends. As he approached the completion of his earthly life and ministry–events we will recall and reenact very soon during Holy Week–he spent time with them, and taught them, and prayed for them. He told them, again, the things he most wanted them to know and remember and believe. And he gave them the Holy Eucharist–a physical token of his love for them and their unbreakable fellowship with one another–both as a way of saying goodbye and an assurance that their separation, however long, would not be permanent. “Like gold to airy thinness beat.”
Oh the wonderful condescension of our Incarnate God, who was willing to stoop to us in the fullness of our mortal nature–a nature that dreads and yet must endure goodbyes. God Himself has known the sorrow of separation from those he loves. God Himself has given a sure and certain sign that no separation–from Him, or from those to whom we are bound in Baptism–will last forever.
Then let us say goodbye in the ways that seem best to us. I will still give kisses and say “I love you,” even if the separation will be short. You may be content with a nod or a handshake, not knowing what the future holds, but knowing that God holds the future.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th’ other foot [of a compass], obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
- “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”