What I Learned From A Lifetime of Goodbyes (And Why It Matters)

Childhood Goodbyes

All my biggest hurts have come from goodbyes.

They started in childhood. When I was three years old, my two sisters and I went to live with our paternal grandparents. Our mom was unable to care for us, and our dad was active military. We lived with them for three and a half years, after which our dad remarried and we went to live as a family again.

Saying goodbye to the grandparents who had raised us for what was a significant percentage of our lives at that point was very difficult. While we were ecstatic to be getting a new mom and to be living with our dad again, this goodbye set the stage. You can only imagine my poor grandmother.

Moving as a Military Family

The next ten years or more followed a similar pattern as we moved regularly, as military families are called upon to do. I once counted and realized I had changed schools around ten or eleven times, often in the middle of the school year.

When your parent is in the military, you are conditioned to the pattern. Kids come and go in your class. You make friends, but you hold them loosely. There is no such thing as a BFF, more like a BFFN (Best Friend For Now). It did not make saying goodbye any easier. Each move, I still cried and swore I would never have friends like this again. Anywhere.

Distant Losses

There were a couple of goodbyes that came along. I lost a couple of grandparents. It was from a distance, and while I was saddened and grieved, my life was not deeply impacted. They were real, and taught me of loss, but my life was primarily unaffected.

Sending My Oldest to College

The first goodbye that really hit hard was when my oldest child left for college. We were living in Washington State, and he was attending college in Florida, which made it incredibly tough. When my husband and I drove away from campus on that last day, knowing we were catching a flight the next morning, we were gutted.

We were leaving our child. Alone. With people we did not know, in a place we were unfamiliar with. It went against everything I had done for eighteen years. And yet as he stood waving, we drove off, with him in the rearview mirror, our hearts shattered.

That goodbye became the first of many, as he came and went over the next four years. We survived them all, and later the same for our other two children. But nothing was as hard as that first one. What we were saying goodbye to on that first trip was not just our son in his college dorm. It was a phase of life, an era.

Saying Goodbye to My Dad

The next very difficult goodbye was to my dad as he succumbed to Alzheimer's. I had finally restored my relationship with him after years of tension after he left my mom when I was seventeen. We were reconciled, the relationship was wonderful, and he was happy and content. Until he learned he had early-onset Alzheimer's.

Watching him slowly become less like the man from my childhood was gut-wrenching. Standing by his bed in hospice, saying goodbye for the final time, was almost a relief.

Losing My Mom

My hardest goodbye, to date, would have to be my mom, some would call her my step-mom, but we all called her our mom. We lost her too early, too quickly, and what we all felt was stunning. Our mom was the linchpin that held our family together. We were changed. Deeply and irrevocably. Not one person in our family was unaffected by her passing. Not a day goes by that I do not think of her. Time smoothed the rough edges, and the thoughts more oft than not bring a smile rather than tears. Nonetheless, that goodbye was harsh and pivotal.

Remembering the Hellos

Then I remembered the hellos.

For every goodbye, there are hellos. When we moved away, there were hellos as we met new people, made new friends, and developed new relationships. When someone else moved away, a new person took their place, a new hello.

When my children left, grew up, became adults, they brought new people into our lives to say hello to. Spouses. Grandchildren. Beautiful hellos.

And while death feels like the final goodbye, we know that it is not. There will be a glorious Hello again. A reunion that will never end. And that is what gives us Hope. That is what gives us the ability to endure the goodbyes, The promise of the final Hello.

Starting on my next blog, I will talk about the Hellos of Advent. A weekly post about what we can say Hello to during the Christmas Season. 

Please like/follow to get this directly in your inbox. Share with others.