Say Goodbye
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 4, 2008
Never miss a chance to say goodbye.
I've been thinking about this over the past few days as I got word of someone I know passing away from cancer. I didn't know him overly well, and may have seen him only one time a year for a few days while attending a yearly conference out of town, but still he made an impact on me. He was the nicest guy, and always smiled when he talked to me. Yes, it really is that easy to make an impact on someone.
Almost every day, we leave the presence of someone we know, whether it's someone we know well or someone we don't know as well. Many of those people have made some kind of impact on your life, whether it's daily or infrequently. We always believe that we'll have another chance to see them, another chance to interact with them in some way, but that's not always the case.
It can happen in an instant. I had one friend whose wife was at a conference, had a massive stroke, and he never got to talk to her again. He told me that he'd left for work early the day she left and didn't want to wake her, and then didn't get a chance to talk to her that day or the next day until someone called to give him the bad news. He felt bad that he hadn't been there with his wife, but worse that he didn't even wake her to say goodbye. Sometimes, that feeling of incompletion will stay with you for a long time.
When you leave home for work, say goodbye. At the end of a work day, say goodbye. When you leave a function, say goodbye. And to my friend Jerry, I say goodbye now.
Hi Mitch,
These are really nice words. Or not, depending on the circumstances. I know someone who always says “I love you” before they part, so in case anything happens, the other person knows.
Is that too much? Should we always be prepared to say “goodbye”, “I love you” or is it sometimes better to just go? To disappear?
Latter might make it easier, or more difficult. I am not sure but I think, as long as we always make sure that our friends and family know what we feel about it, that is very important.
Volker
Volker´s last blog post..books to read this autumn (or not to read) – and NLP 😉
I think it all depends on just how good of friends they are to you, Volker. Guys don’t usually go around telling other guys they love them, but we do find our own way of expressing how we feel about each other. So, if you care, what’s wrong with a little goodbye here and there? As I’ve gotten older, my crowd has taken to quick hugs here and there; I’m not mad at it, though I didn’t change my stance on all of this until my dad passed away.
Sorry to hear about your friend passing. Saying goodbye is truly important… there is nothing I am more grateful about than the fact that I was there when my grandmother passed, so I did get to tell her goodbye, as opposed to having to hear it from someone else after the fact.
~ Kristi
Kikolani | Poetry, Photography, Blogging Tips´s last blog post..My Grandmother
Same here, Kristi. I was there for my dad, and that was worth more to me than I had ever imagined it would be.
It’s an almost indescribable experience. Knowing she was there for my birth, and then I was there for her passing. Sad yet beautiful.
~ Kristi
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