Do goodbyes have to be painful?

Good bye is the hardest thing you have to say especially if you love someone and that person is not responding. But sometimes it’s for the best. It hurts and pierces your heart as you have to let go of the person and forge ahead with life. It is easy to say hello to your loved ones but hard to say goodbye if there are moments you have both shared. “I have been through that situation and it made me sick for almost two months,” says Ben Obi, a banker in Abuja.

Someone once asked: “If endings symbolize beginnings, why are goodbyes so hard to say? Tearing ourselves away from people who mean a lot to us is one of the most painful things that can happen to us in our lives but when situations become inevitable, there is no other option than to say goodbye. Goodbyes must not necessarily be borne of hatred and despite everything, there are ways that they can be said and those involved can remain friends, rather than enemies.

Goodbyes do not really have to mean the end. As we grow older, we all come to terms that nothing is permanent in our lives and somewhere along the line circumstances and situations happen beyond our control.

Safiya Kareem, a nurse in Abuja, said: “Saying goodbye to a loved one is something nobody anticipates but when it comes there is nothing that can be done about it, it has to be done. Once a goodbye is said to signify the end of a relationship, there is always going to be emotional stress that comes along with it. It’s not easy to be said and definitely not the best word to tell a loved one.”

Then Bridget Chris, a media consultant said: “Saying goodbye is a part of human experience that we encounter every day, sometimes nonchalantly, sometimes with great emotion. Then, eventually, the time comes for the final goodbye when we lose someone. Goodbyes come in many different forms. There are goodbyes that mean forever, there are those that just mean the normal everyday goodbye.”

“Where is the ‘good’ in goodbye,’” Jemima Audu, an undergraduate at University of Abuja, asked. “There is nothing good in goodbye. Why add the ‘good’ when at the end of it all you do is cause trauma and pain to the other party? It has happened to me, when my love just decided to say goodbye for no reason and expected me to feel good about the whole thing. It was a terrible situation and will never wish it for anybody, not even my enemy. Do you know what it means to say goodbye forever to someone you have shared so many things with?”

Saying goodbye is not at all an easy thing for the person saying it, too. And the person it is being said to, as well. But after all is said and done, we should not be dismayed at saying goodbye. There are some goodbyes that we cannot run away from, the pain it is going to cause notwithstanding. If only we’d take a minute to realise that saying goodbye for the benefit of both parties is beneficial, we would realize that there is so much more than the word itself. Saying it is not the hardest part. What we leave behind is what matters.