Saying Goodbye (essay)

***

1

The medieval German mystic called to our attention the fact that - surprisingly enough - opposites, when they are precise or exact opposites, have much in common, by writing:

“In my beginning is my end

In my end is my beginning.”

Later writers have pondered the complexity of this paradoxical statement, since one’s “end” can be a goal; the “end” that you pursue is something you wish to achieve, the object of a quest or a striving. Only after having identified a goal for oneself – the end that one chooses to pursue – only after identifying this “end,” can one make a beginning in the most meaningful sense.

As the poet wrote:
“In my end is my beginning.”

On the other hand, as you begin any new endeavor, simply by beginning, you define an end – a rationale, a value giving your life and work meaning and purpose – since any effort is aimed in a particular direction, where the effort will lead, where it will end.

As the poet wrote:
“In my beginning is my end.”

So both paradoxical statements are true:
“In my beginning is my end
In my end is my beginning.”

2

In his masterwork, Four Quartets, the great American poet, T. S. Eliot, quotes that medieval monk, and later describes a moving scene from a Hindu legend: a large group of dedicated pilgrims is gathered together on a darkened shoreline, setting out on a long and unpredictable journey across dark and unsettled seas.

To these pilgrims, the poet imagined that we should say, not “Fare well” as in a goodbye, not “Fare well” (as at the end of something) but “Fare forward” (as at the beginning).

We should say, that is:
“Fare forward, pilgrims, on your exciting and challenging and
significant journey.”

3

Often as our children grow up, as our friends mature, or marry, take a new job or move somewhere else, we could think of their growth as a journey – a journey of discovery, requiring courage and self-discipline, and providing a sense of danger and of freedom.

By concluding a stage in life, the individual – whether a retiree or a young child - would be experiencing the beginning of a new stage, whether as a grandmother coming to a new town to provide extra child care or a youngster joining a Little League team for the first time.

And by making this new beginning – whether it be the first day of kindergarten or the first day of college orientation, the first job or the twentieth, the last time one chooses a new home or the first – by making the start, our child or our friend would be setting a new goal, defining a new objective; and in her or his beginning there would be a new end.

And to them too, we might say (at least in our imagination):
“Fare forward, voyagers.”

This might mean, Fare forward on your journey toward independence and identity, not (one hopes) through selfishness or a desire merely to please others, but through initiative and service; your journey (one hopes) toward satisfaction through new friendships and commitments.

“Congratulations,” we might say on such occasions: “Fare forward, and Good Luck!”

And on such occasions when it is we who are making such a transition, we might want to say the same to ourselves.

***