Yesterday I had tea with a very, very favourite person. I thought the setting would make for a serene, cosy moment to say goodbye since she is soon to leave. But we ended up chatting about so many other things; time flew as I just basked happily in the glow of her gracious, wise presence. All too soon, she was getting up and I just couldn’t say what I had planned to.
Later, following this train of thought, I came upon a very interesting passage by aviation pioneer Anne M. Lindbergh on different words that mean ‘farewell’. She writes in her memoir, North to the Orient
“For Sayonara, literally translated, ‘Since it must be so,’ of all the good-bys I have heard is the most beautiful.
Unlike the Auf Wiedershens and Au revoirs, it does not try to cheat itself by any bravado ‘Till we meet again,’ any sedative to postpone the pain of separation. It does not evade the issue like the sturdy blinking Farewell. Farewell is a father’s good-by. It is – ‘Go out in the world and do well, my son.’ It is encouragement and admonition. It is hope and faith. But it passes over the significance of the moment; of parting it says nothing. It hides its emotion. It says too little. While Good-by (‘God be with you’) and Adios say too much. They try to bridge the distance, almost to deny it. Good-by is a prayer, a ringing cry. ‘You must not go – I cannot bear to have you go! But you shall not go alone, unwatched. God will be with you. God’s hand will over you’ and even – underneath, hidden, but it is there, incorrigible – ‘I will be with you; I will watch you – always.’ It is a mother’s good-by.
But Sayonara says neither too much nor too little. It is a simple acceptance of fact. All understanding of life lies in its limits. All emotion, smoldering, is banked up behind it. But it says nothing. It is really the unspoken good-by, the pressure of a hand, ‘Sayonara.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient
Crumbs on my Notebook 