#1 30-08-06 05:53:45

stammering

Member

Registered: 27-08-06

Posts: 72

Goodbyes

I want to tell this story to a wide audience but I'm unsure if this is the right audience.  I won't know until I write it and if nobody reads it at least I will have written it. 
I was on a bus leaving the sleepy little town I lived in and heading back to a boarding school far away.  As the bus crept up the hill going out of town it passed the humble little cottage my family lived in.  It was hidden from view by bush and trees.  Standing on the cliff near my home was the tall and familiar figure of my father.  Even though he was very sick at that time and couldn't take ten paces without getting severely out of breath he was still an imposing sight.  As the bus passed he gave a wave.  A big, open, generous wave, just like the big, open and generous man he was.  The wave of course was for me.  He was my world, my everything. To me nothing he said or did was wrong or even questionable.  But such are the complexities of being a teenager, at the moment he waved to me my arms were glued to my sides.  I couldn't and didn't wave back.  I turned my head away.  I don't know whether my father saw me in that bus or not, but I do know that was the last time I saw him.  When the rest of my family went to view him at the funeral home, I couldn't go.  I was almost sick with remorse.  Remorse which haunted and tormented me for years and years after that day I left home to go back to school.  Then many years later I was visiting my mother and about to leave her house to go home to where I lived and worked on the coast 60 miles away and we had a dreadful arguement.  I don't know what it was about to this day.  I do know that she didn't cause it.  A more gentle woman did not exist in the world than my mother.  She had not a fibre of anger or resentment in her.  I flung myself out the door and got in my car, angrily switching on the engine.  At that moment a little red light went on in my head and I quietly switched off the engine, got out of the car and went inside and gave my mother a big hug and a kiss.  It was the last time I saw her alive.  The next time I saw my mother she was in a coffin and I felt strangely at peace with it all.  I had said goodby to her properly.  More years passed and I found myself at an event with 47 other people who were all there for one reason or another.  The very first process we went through was cathartic and alarming, but for me it was so cleansing.  While everyone else was having their experiences I was waving goodbye to my father, tears streaming down my face and nearly choking with grief.  Since that day I have had virtually no further remorse or regrets about my departure from my father when I was just a teenager.  I have shared this little story with only one other person and now I am writing it here and the final grain of remorse has gone.  I don't have a way with words which so many other people have who contribute to these forums, but I'm happy that I have now put it out there and that is very liberating.  Goodbyes are very special.

The_Elfman

Member

From: Yorkshire & Imladris

Registered: 17-07-06

Posts: 1,028

Website

Re: Goodbyes

That is a beautiful and poignant story Stammering.  Thank you so much for sharing it.  What you say is true.  We should never miss an opportunity to show someone how much we love them. You never know when it might be your last.

Elfman

---

Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense

stammering

Member

Registered: 27-08-06

Posts: 72

Re: Goodbyes

Thank you Elfman for reading my story and responding to it.  Your words will remain like jewels in my memory because you are only the second person ever to comment on it in over half a century.  To the other 17 or so people who have opened the thread to read it or opened it and maybe didn't read it, I also want to thank you because you at least showed an interest.  Thanks everyone.

corey2

Member

From: Melbourne

Registered: 10-07-06

Posts: 33

Re: Goodbyes

Regret, guilt, reaching out from past events to grip your heart and steal your breath... I know exactly how you feel stammering.... I think many people would empathise.. perhaps your event was more crystal than some some... I can tell you that I certainly felt it clearly by reading your story. Thank you very much for sharing. Congratulations on finding the generosity to forgive yourself... so often we find it easier to forgive others than to forgive ourselves. KUDOS to you!!

pineapples1234

Member

Registered: 30-05-06

Posts: 15

Re: Goodbyes

I have read your story, and like others have said a very poignent story indeed, words are very hard to find after reading a story like that, indeed i had misty eyes all the way through it as it brought back memories of my own father whom i lost when i was only 5....sadly at that age you dont say goodbye, you dont understand...... you think he will be coming back.But thank you for sharing it with us.