19 How Do I Say Goodbye?
The one thing that Pamela regretted about her husband’s passing was their last goodbye. Pamela had poured herself into caring for her husband in the course of his swift decline. They had done so well together, even though his end had come so unexpectedly and suddenly. Yet having poured herself into his physical care, Pamela felt as if she had ignored listening to him and letting him express his devotion to her. Thinking back over it, Pamela even remembered instances where her husband had tried to get her attention as she busily served his physical needs. Perhaps she had just been distracted or even exhausted. But she couldn’t even clearly remember him saying goodbye, although she suspected that he had tried.
Goodbyes
Goodbyes hold great significance. Don’t underestimate the power and impact of your last goodbyes. One can at any time, for instance, have a wonderful hour-long conversation with a friend, but if you stumble over a parting, you may leave a wound or offense rather than a blessing, spoiling the entire hour. Goodbyes color the whole conversation. Your last goodbyes can color how your loved ones remember you. It is entirely unfair that you can love a spouse or child for a lifetime but significantly diminish their memory of that love with a careless or unintentionally hurtful goodbye. But that’s the nature of goodbyes. The primacy-and-recency rule of memory is that we remember the first and the last more than the middle. You likely remember the first moment you met your spouse years or decades ago and remember the last moment she just walked out of the room, while having forgotten a whole lot about your spouse that came in between. We remember goodbyes. Make yours most appropriate.
Words
Words have a great impact because that is their purpose. Words communicate our intentions, attitudes, stances, heart, mind, and emotions. Yet we often have the hardest time controlling our own words, especially when we speak them without much thought. We tend, for instance, to relax our focus whenever we perceive that a meeting, negotiation, or conversation is over, so that we speak whatever our thoughtless tongue generates. Without any intention to harm, we may blurt out something that we would never have said if we had given any thought to it. That’s simply the nature of how we form speech, in a vortex stirred by our heart, mind, emotions, and tongue. If we don’t give thought to our words and don’t guide them with a soft heart and balanced emotions, they spill out anyway, cutting and confusing without heart or reason. To communicate effectively, we must speak not only out of emotion but also with heart and reason.
Consideration
The end of earthly life is not the time to speak without thought. Prior chapters have already made clear that words and actions at the end of life can have a greater impact than ever. You might have had many arguments with your spouse and children across the course of your life, with each argument quickly fading away under the influence of your subsequent service, care, love, and grace. At the end of life, you’d have no time nor capability to heal the wounds of a harshly or carelessly spoken word. You need at the end of life to give greater, not lesser, consideration to your words. Yet the end of life is also a time when we have less clarity and therefore less reason. At the end of life, we may also have less heart and sensitivity to direct our mind and control our emotions. Thus, you may face a greater challenge than ever in speaking as you wish to speak, tenderly, forgivingly, and lovingly. Be on your guard when saying your goodbyes.
Values
We should indeed speak tenderly, sensitively, and forgivingly at the end of life, in saying our goodbyes. The specific choice of words is up to you. The individual words you use may not even be all that important, whether articulate or inarticulate, formal or informal, or fancy or plain. Think instead of the values that your words should express. You should hope to convey your love, care, and devotion to your spouse. You should want to convey your respect, admiration, and confidence in your children. You should want to express your delight in your grandchildren. You should wish to communicate your appreciation for your friends, caretakers, and pastor. On the other hand, you would not want to burden and diminish your family members, friends, and caretakers with hurtful, careless, judgmental, bitter, or despairing words.
Impacts
Your goodbyes have impacts on those who hear them. Your spouse will especially feel the comfort and hope, or weight and despair, of your words. Your children, too, will listen most carefully and remember longest what you say in your goodbyes. Think, then, of the impact of your words. You do not want to use words that cut, wound, harm, and injure. You do not want to use words that diminish and demean. Be thoughtful and gentle. If you hesitate to speak any word that seems perhaps too strong, unclear, confusing, or critical, then don’t speak that word. Once you speak a word, you can never pull it back. If, after you say a goodbye, you believe that you should have said something more or something differently, and you are concerned with the impact of what you said, then consider a follow-up telephone call or note. If you know you said something you didn’t mean to say or said something in a way that someone mistook as critical, then correct it and apologize, either at the time or as soon as you realize it later. Observe the impact of your words, and ensure that they have the impact you intend.
Responses
You should expect those to whom you say goodbye to respond to your goodbyes. Your family members and friends may respond in kind, lovingly, affirmingly, and with hope and assurance. On the other hand, they may not respond as you hope and desire. Don’t let an unexpected or even disappointing response change your own sentiments in saying goodbye. If you’ve communicated a loving and otherwise appropriate goodbye, leave it at that, even if you do not get an affirming and loving response. Family members and friends may find it hard to respond at the time. They may be emotional, distraught, fearful, exhausted, distracted, or otherwise not in a condition to respond appropriately. Don’t let their insufficiency upset you, and don’t call it to their attention. They may be doing the best that they can under the circumstances, even if they are not responding as you may need or hope. Your goodbye is for them, not for you. Don’t turn a fine goodbye into a poor goodbye simply because you do not get the response you expect. If, on the other hand, you get a response that exceeds your needs, desires, and expectations, welcome it, enjoy it, and express your appreciation. Others saying goodbye to you may need and desire your own affirmative and appreciative response.
Resonance
What you communicate to others also resonates in your own soul. When you say goodbye to others, you are also saying goodbye to your earthly self, speaking values, commitments, and confidence into your own soul. You may not even feel the positive, loving, and affirming way in which you say your goodbyes. Then, good for you. You’ve spoken out of commitment rather than emotion. You’ve done the right thing even when you did not feel like doing so. And the love you express, notwithstanding contrary emotions, will affect and reform those emotions. You may gain the assurance you need from your own words. The goodbyes you say may have a greater impact on you than on those to whom you speak them. And that’s just fine if so. It’s simply another reason to say your goodbyes as you know you should, with the greatest clarity, hope, love, and affirmation. Words you speak return to you instantly, resonating in your own soul.
Deliberate
As the brief story at this chapter’s beginning illustrates, don’t miss the opportunity to say goodbye. You may have to be deliberate about getting the attention of your family members, friends, caretakers, and others to whom you wish to say goodbye. You may have to interrupt their ministrations and conversation to pointedly say what you want to say as a goodbye. Their care and chatter can resume after you say goodbye, if necessary or if they wish. They may return to see you again after you have once said goodbye. No matter. Say goodbye anyway, when you feel the urge and necessity, and have the clarity and capacity to do so. Who knows but that it may be your last time? Be deliberate about saying goodbyes. Don’t leave them to chance, or the chance may not come.
Content
Goodbyes spoken at other times have traditional forms. Traditional goodbyes may not be appropriate for an end-of-life goodbye. A customary goodbye may well, for instance, include a see you next time. An end-of-life goodbye may instead include a see you on the other side. Your goodbyes don’t have to be long and painful. They don’t have to be disquisitions on the meaning of life or the prospects of afterlife. Your end-of-life goodbye generally should, though, refer to your gratitude for your life and the expectation of transcendence. But the purpose of a goodbye is not to resolve or reflect on one’s own life or one’s own issues. Goodbyes instead celebrate the relationship between the individuals saying goodbye. So, express your appreciation for your relationship with the one to whom you say goodbye. If you remember nothing else in the course of an emotional goodbye, be sure to convey, clearly, positively, and most appreciatively, what the other person meant to you. That’s how you communicate a proper goodbye.
Tone
The tone of your goodbyes should generally be hopeful, positive, even celebratory to the extent that you are able. Yet end-of-life goodbyes are of course naturally and appropriately emotional because of the final nature of the parting. End-of-life goodbyes should be emotional, heartfelt, moving. Tears on both sides are not only appropriate but welcome and even expected. Do not be curt or offhand. You may be weak and exhausted, and need to be alone. If your condition limits your ability to convey the emotion and care that you’d like to express, then quietly say so, so that the other understands. Do your best, though, to keep the tone warm and positive. The one saying goodbye to you will likely also be trying to do so. Don’t take their warmth and positivity as if they do not mourn your loss. They may only be trying to hearten and reassure you. Their grief can come later, outside your presence. Let them encourage you.
Form
The form of your goodbyes can influence their effectiveness. We may live in a digital world, but digital goodbyes aren’t the same as a real-life, in-person goodbye. Your goodbyes should be communicated in person, whenever possible. We communicate so much more in person, with our expression, demeanor, and touch, than we do in writing or over the telephone. Some of the best goodbyes aren’t even with words but instead with long hugs, a long hold of the hand, a stroke of the head and hair, and a smile and deep look in the eyes. Don’t let a family member or friend leave a visit without a goodbye, expecting that you’ll write them a note or give them a call afterward. But if you miss saying an in-person goodbye or have no such opportunity, then by all means write a note or make a telephone call if you are able. Prefer warm, in-person contact but be sure to share goodbyes.
Witness
Perhaps the greatest consideration, though, is to make your goodbyes reflect your confidence in Christ’s resurrection. Those to whom you say goodbye, especially the family members about whom you naturally care most, need to see and rely on your assurance in your transcendence, out of the love of the Savior Christ. They may already know the invitation to eternity. They may already have accepted and embraced it. But they still need to see it in you and hear it from you. You may likewise need their encouragement. That’s fine if so. Encourage one another. The better goodbyes in common discourse are the ones that anticipate renewing acquaintances. The best goodbye at the end of life is one that anticipates renewing glorified acquaintances in the eternal realm. Your end-of-life goodbyes are in that way the richest possible earthly communications, the greatest words you’ll ever speak, and the greatest encouragement you can ever share. Make them count.
Reflection
Do you have a list in mind or in hand of the individuals to whom you need or want to say goodbye? Have you begun to say your goodbyes or planned to do so? Do you believe that you’ll be able to express appropriately what you wish to share? Would making some notes in advance help you do so? Do you have critical views or similar things that you know you’ll need to resist sharing? What values do you want your goodbyes to reflect? Do you have a family member or friend for whom your goodbye may have an especially strong impact? Do you need to show special sensitivity to that family member or friend in a certain way or on a certain subject? Are you ready to forgive an offhand, flippant, inappropriate, or otherwise inadequately caring response? How could you best honor each relationship in your goodbyes with both family members and friends? Can you keep the tone of your goodbyes warm, heartening, and positive? Do you need to be deliberate right now about saying goodbye, while you still have the clarity and energy? Do you have some family members or friends that you must call or write to convey your goodbye because they cannot visit? Will you share your assurance of your transcendence in the grace of the Savior Christ?
Key Points
Be sure to share a fitting goodbye, leaving no regrets for anyone.
End of life makes words difficult to control and articulate sensitively.
Consider your goodbye words carefully before speaking them.
Ensure that your goodbyes share the values that you wish to impart.
Appreciate that end-of-life goodbyes have greater than usual impacts.
Expect varying responses, not always what you’d prefer or expect.
Your goodbyes also resonate with you, affecting your assurance.
Be deliberate about sharing goodbyes, or the opportunity may pass.
Focus your goodbyes on appreciating your relationship with the other.
Keep the tone of your goodbyes warm and encouraging, if emotional.
Share your goodbyes in person if possible, otherwise by note or call.
Share the good news of your coming resurrection in the Savior Christ.