RELATIONSHIPS
If You’re Going to Bail, Do it Right
Leaving is hard to do, but it can be done well.
“He took care of everything Katie. You don’t need to do anything but sign some paper.”
My dad’s best friend was an attorney and had helped him get everything sorted out before he died. It was my father’s last act of taking care of me. He knew that I would be in no condition to think through complex issues and make big decisions. He knew I would need all my resources to manage the intensity of the emotions quietly consuming me. Such is the experience of receiving a “good” goodbye, even though it’s hard, you feel loved through it. My dad also gave me one final life lesson: you will never escape goodbyes, but you can say one well.
My mother taught me quite a different lesson on goodbyes. Her first one was when I was six and she left me and my brother after our parents’ divorce to, as she would say, figure herself out. She never stopped trying to figure herself out, and over the entirety of my life, put me through multiple goodbyes. With each one, she taught me how much damage can be imparted by a careless departure.
What this juxtaposition has taught me is that goodbyes are not wrong or something to be avoided, but the way one…
