The slow goodbye
Everyone who has ever accompanied a loved one through a final illness, knows the feeling: saying the slow goodbye. Not wanting it to be over. Praying for it to end at last.
The contradictory intenseness of these feelings makes for a special kind of tension. Painful. Precious. Vital, like only life lived in the moment can be.
Thankfully, I am not confronted with any terminal illnesses in my life or that of my loved ones. But I do recognize the tension. My professional period of notice is drawing to a close. The window of weeks (or rather days) left to say goodbye to what has been, to consciously let go of the old and divert my attention to new horizons is growing very narrow.
I have been able to keep from counting down. But I can feel time’s hand working me, more consciously than ever.
If something eclipses out of your life, in my Dutch mother tongue we tend to call it ‘the shorter pain’. Often, though, this grief will resurface more than once over time, demanding attention and healing, so I wouldn’t call it that short, after all. I’d rather live this slow goodbye, bittersweet, drawn out. Allowing for wistfulness, regret even, while still knowing it to be the right decision. Allowing for walks through familiar hallways, thinking: dammit, I liked being here. But also: it’s time for this to end.
Every embrace outlasting itself will turn to suffocation, I wrote in STREAM. It still holds true.
So I am detaching myself now. Gradually. Slowly.
