04 Oct On Saying Goodbye

Dear Westwood Community,

Last week, I saw a new coming-of-age movie that affected me deeply*. There is a sequence where two main characters talk about saying goodbye and growing up. One of them observes what a blessing it is to know that an ending is an ending- to experience the last of something and to know it is the Last.

The next day I found out that someone who had been a close friend of mine in middle and high school had passed away unexpectedly the week before. I hadn’t seen her since we graduated, but I was still shocked and heartbroken to hear the news. She was someone I had grown and lived next to for so long that I assumed our lives would run parallel for much longer than they did.

This was the fourth person I have lost in the past year, the third of whom I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to, all while witnessing many other losses around the Westwood community and the world as a whole. I know this is an inevitable part of life and growing up, but somehow that knowledge doesn’t make the grief any easier.

This past Sunday, while working on signs and games for our upcoming Fall Festival, some of the Grapplers began discussing what they love about being teenagers. They talked about adventures with friends, having a place to come home to, and the feeling of their whole lives being ahead of them. I was, as I often am, impressed by the self-awareness and gratitude of their observations, and their refusal to take for granted the little things that make it wonderful for them to be 15.

Many writers and philosophers have observed that youth is precious in part because it is fleeting. One of the built-in blessings of high school is that there is such a clear endpoint; so many of the lasts are marked, celebrated, and expected. There is something beautiful in a transition that you can prepare for, in having the chance to experience the last time and know it is the last of its kind. But there will always be those other endings too, the ones you could never have seen coming, the ones that knock the wind out of you and leave you wondering what happened.

A gift of working with young people is the constant reminder of impermanence, change, and transition, that all of us are growing and changing all the time, even beyond adolescence. Youth is fleeting, and so is everything. I would guess that the majority of endings and goodbyes come as a surprise, and I wonder what it means to move through life and relationships knowing this and choosing to love more deeply because of it.

“Treat every day like it could be your last” is a cliche, and a largely impractical one when it comes to our actual day-to-day lives and obligations, but I do think it is possible to enjoy relationships, moments, and phases more fully, knowing that we don’t know when they will come to an end, and that it might be sooner than we would have wanted or prepared for. When I am intentional about telling people what they mean to me and how they’ve shaped me, when I take a few moments every day to notice what I love about the life I have right now, I know that, when things change, it won’t feel as frantic or unresolved. If an unexpected shift arrives on the horizon, I know I will have spent the time I had in the best way I could, appreciating what I had while I had it. It doesn’t make the grief lighter, but, for me at least, it makes the impending nature of it all feel a lot less scary.

There is a sadness that comes with temporality, but there is also peace in accepting that all things will end, learning to walk with mindful love and gratitude for the blessings we have while we have them, and letting that be enough. I am thankful to be in a community that holds space for both life and death, joy and grief, that witnesses the transient nature of this life and these bodies and chooses to embrace them anyway.

With love and thanks,
Everest

* The title of the movie includes a word that may not be appropriate for a pastoral note, but email me and I will gladly send you the name 🙂