Saying a Proper Goodbye

Lessons in Life School (Lesson 13)

Brenda Brayko

Mar 10, 2023

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The Need Arises

It seems certain lessons in Life School periodically spiral up to greet me. This week I was struck by the many moments that Deep Goodbyes surfaced: an acquaintance describing her sister’s passing, a friend processing many friends leaving her city the past few years, my friend group grappling with aging and dying parents. There are so many occasions in our lives where we encounter goodbyes you would think that everyone would be pretty good at it by now - but, alas, that is not always the case. Certainly the breadth and depth of goodbyes is beyond anything one could list, some quick, some slow, some unexpected, and occurring at any point of life, whether we are ready for it or good at it or not. What a gift, then, to contemplate what it looks like to “say a proper goodbye.”

I’m in my fifties, and only now realizing the impact of a proper (or improper) goodbye. As my friend Claire says, including an exchange of love and an acknowledgement of the impending loss can be crucial. While such a thing will always be a process, somehow saying a “proper goodbye” leaves us feeling sad but whole, able to move forward even in our sadness. And, without it, the broken, empty or unresolved nature of it can linger on and on.

The Leaving

I’ve both left and been left. By that I mean, I have left places and people for good (high school and college classmates and colleagues and friends in both Korea and Hong Kong) and have been the one left behind as friends and colleagues waved their final goodbye. In either case, it is hard.

Our final night in Korea, a bit of karaoke. 2014.

When my family left Korea after four years of teaching at an international school, those goodbyes were heartbreaking! We had loved and been loved by so many people. In short order, some of them had become like family. In the final month, the celebrations and parties seemed endless. First this friend group then that friend group got together “one last time” (sometimes several times). We got a big group together to sing at a karaoke bar (noraebang) and had the time of our lives. We stood around the fountain at our apartment complex and chatted one final time as the kids played and also said their goodbyes. We were grateful when the school offered proper sendoffs to all of the departing teachers - a schoolwide celebration including colleagues speaking of our accomplishments and wishing us well. We hugged and cried a lot. In fact, the final day of school for teachers we cried and hugged so many people we were absolutely exhausted. We couldn’t imagine never SEEING them again! But because we were leaving Korea, the chances were slim that our paths would cross.

Somehow through the celebrations, send offs, hugs and tears, we had managed to say proper goodbyes. We were whole and free to begin our new adventure in Hong Kong.

Sandy goodbye: A bit of the process leaving Hong Kong, 2021.

If you have watched the news regarding Hong Kong, then you might not be surprised that many, many people have left Hong Kong for good. Left in the wake are people like my friend Amanda. So many of her friends have left the city in just a few years! What a challenge it must be to say goodbye to one friend only to have another, then another, announce they are leaving too. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Each time a bit of yourself leaves you. Grief and sadness come knocking over and over. And so it mustn’t be ignored! How wise of her to realize the value in learning to say a proper goodbye, one that ultimately has healing properties built in and honors the process. It was after a conversation with Amanda and some others I was inspired to dig into this life lesson a little more. I asked my friends to share their stories.

Creating a Proper Goodbye

I am so grateful to another good friend, Catriona, for sharing this story of a “proper goodbye” when she divorced. After realizing their paths were no longer aligned - they were “like two plants growing in a pot that was not big enough to allow [them] to grow to their full potential. [They] needed repotting!” - she and her first husband, of 10 years, agreed it was best to divorce. She described it as “overall the most loving thing I could do for both of us.” Here’s where she surprised me: Even at a young age she knew it needed to be complete and well-ended, and so they created a proper goodbye. In her words:

I proposed that we visit a counsellor/guide for 6 sessions to say to each other, in safety, all we needed to and to allow each other safe passage. I recall vividly the last session. The guided visualization was of a boat tied to a jetty, untying the knot and letting it drift off.
We also had a ceremony. We invited a friend, a professional photographer, to come with us to Stanley where he took rolls of film of us on the the rocks together. After he left, [my ex-husband] turned and gave me a beautiful clear, sparkling diamond pendant. He said to me: This is the light that shines in you and will never go out.
. . . It was such a healing and good ending that it freed us both to move forwards into new chapters of our lives, without any ties or pain.”

I would never have thought about creating such a well-thought out proper ending in the case of a divorce, and yet, they did it - through counseling and an ending-ceremony. Not easy. Not simple. But effective and perfect.

Sometimes the nature of the goodbye is more ambiguous. For example, if your loved one has dementia, the person you once knew seems to disappear slowly even as they are still physically present. My friend Claire is now spending quite a lot of time with her aging parents and they have reached the point of role reversal. She is comforted by the little moments of love that contribute to her slow and often painful goodbye, like watching once again The Love Boat with her mother (a fond childhood memory resurrected) or taking her father to the seaside to eat a sausage roll and watch the waves. There are no grand gestures there, just little moments, accumulated like shells on a shore, that serve to unfold a proper goodbye.

The Crossing Over

I clearly remember the first time I was told that being present for a loved one’s death was a sacred thing, a true gift. I was in my early forties, I suppose, and my friend and co-worker had just returned to work after her mother had died. She explained the experience in some detail - how she held her mother’s hand, had spoken softly to her, had listened to her breath and made note of every movement. She spoke about the moment her mother’s last breath left her body and how mysterious life and death were and how surprised she was at the stillness and the peace of it. She described, as she could, how she knew her mother was still present, just no longer in the body, and how all was well. I’d never considered that sitting by a loved one’s deathbed could be described as “sacred” and “peaceful” and “a gift”. I was overcome with the thought of it.

By that point I had already lost a dear friend when she was just 22, as well as my grandparents and other members of the extended family. But I had never been at a bedside.

Some years later I would remember that conversation when my mother-in-law Joan was on her deathbed, dying of cancer at home with hospice care. My brother-in-law had recently been with his own mother-in-law as she had died. He described the experience similarly and assured us that his experience was not at all what he had expected. Now, as his own mother was soon to pass from this plane of existence, his fear of death was gone; he was ready to say a proper goodbye.

Those two moments, and others, created the space for my final goodbye with Joan to be both sacred and peaceful. There was only space for love - great love - and the ache of the loss of our loved one, as we sent her on her way. “Goodbye. It’s time for you to go. We will be okay, here,” we assured her. We were grateful to know she could hear us and that telling her she could go was an important step in the dying process.

So a few days ago when a new acquaintance shared the story of being at her sister’s bedside gently releasing her with similar words, it all felt familiar. “I know,” I said, “I know. What a gift to be there, to hold her hand, to help send her on her way,” I said.

Never Too Late

Unfortunately, not all goodbyes do or can unfold properly enough to leave you sad but whole. Sometimes they go sideways or upsidedown. Perhaps you were prevented from saying goodbye at all. Perhaps you felt pressure not to cry or to hold in grief of the loss. If that is the case, it may be that a time will arise for you to revisit the ending and the pain it caused. Often times a new event triggers an unresolved memory. When or if you recognize that moment arise, see if you can invite healing to begin. And if you need to be supported in order to journey forward, that’s okay, too. In the case of one friend, she never got to say a proper goodbye to her dying mother. She was only 21 when her mother died of cancer. She was told not to talk to her mother about her dying and to stay strong for her father’s sake. She complied, but at great cost to herself both emotionally and physically. Indeed, her whole life’s journey, including her education and career choice as a therapist, were influenced by this time period. Therapy in its various forms was instrumental in her eventual healing.

In the end, goodbyes are hard and saying a proper goodbye can be a quite challenging process. Being proactive can be beneficial, when possible. But it’s never too late to bring healing to yourself and others. May these stories be a light to you as you find yourself needing to experience a proper goodbye.

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