GOODBYE?!

By: Abdullah R. Sirad

What’s in the word “Goodbye” that many people believed to be the hardest expression to utter? Goodbye is a farewell remark to someone leaving. It is used to express an acknowledgement of parting. When someone is saying goodbye, it implies “good luck” to someone. But why goodbyes seem to cause scars in our heart and keep to tear our feeling?

It has been said that saying goodbye to someone who has been a part of our life is a worse thing one can experience in life. Parting away to someone who became part of our life engraved pains in our heart. It touches our soul especially when shared moments of both good and bad flashes back while being alone.

You may say feeling is mutual for someone leaving and to someone being left but for me, I would say someone being left feels much pain than someone leaving. I have some very interesting story that relates to what I am pointing out. First are photos of two birds which said to have pictured in the Republic of Ukraine where this bird is interested quickly to save his wife (Millions of people cry after watching this picture in America and Europe).

The wife got injured and her condition is very sickening. The husband felt so sad but all he did was only to look for food and attend to her wife with love and compassion. However, the husband was shocked when he found out that his wife died. He even tried to move her to check if she is still alive but he is aware that his sweetheart is dead and will not come to him again so cries with adoring love, stand beside her and scream saddened of her death. The last photograph below shows that the husband is aware that she would not return to him and that she departed him already. The male bird may not speak to say goodbye but sadness and sorrows is obviously drawn to his face as he stands beside her wife. Just like any human couple whose partner has died, would definitely have great difficulty of letting go, though the need to do this is necessary since there’s always a second chance in our life.

Another heartbreaking story was shared by my friend who preferred not to mention his name. He was totally obsessed to his girl friend as he describes his feeling. However, it was to his great dismay that amidst their stable-long time relationship, he found out that his girlfriend was arranged to marry her family friend’s son. They met clandestinely and talked about the crisis that ruined their precious relationship. The girl wants to run off with him but he refused to do it for he wants to preserve the dignity of his girlfriend. They ended their conversation peacefully as if no pain at all was felt. He took her a taxi leading to her home at the feeling of her husband. They kissed for the last time just before she got in the taxi and said “goodbye” to one another. They took the situation calmly as if nothing happened. The taxi runs while he stands still and as it fades away, he knelt down and cried terribly. He then leads his way to a bar house and got drunk believing that in this way, he could at least release the hurt that dot to his heart. In fact, I’m always booing him for his teary eyes every time we were watching TV dramas. I only understood him when he had shared to me his frustrations.

I also tried to ask an Indian friend of mine named Izhar Ahmed of when was the worse moment he had experienced goodbye in his life. He said he didn’t experience worse goodbye like parting away with girlfriend. But he felt, at least, the bitterness of goodbye when he left his family in India. Much of the truth that he can’t believe he would be leaving his family for the first time and worried if what kind of life he is going to venture abroad or would he have career to go back in India, he saw the real sadness to his mother eyes.

Elizabeth Bowen is right of saying that “Good-byes” breed a sort of distaste for whomever you say good-bye to regardless of whatever reasons it is being expressed. While it is true that it is used to express to acknowledge parting, it stills a heart-wrenching statement especially to the one we are saying it to.

However, painful as it is, we must learn to accept that nothing in this material world is constant except change itself. Leaving and being left is an inevitable circumstance.