Life and Island Times August 3 2016 – Sayonara, Key West

Marlow long ago learned not to be picky in farewells. They were not guaranteed or promised.
One was lucky, if not blessed, to give or receive a goodbye. Leaving, he guessed, was always going to hurt. He might even have to cry.

Goodbyes sometimes broke him down, like falling when he had tried to fly as a child.

Some said it was harder to be left behind than to be the one to go. Despite moving over twenty four times and being left behind forty times during the past forty years, he still did not know if that was true.

He does not know exactly how to say goodbye to whom and what he loved. He does not know a painless way to do it.

A goodbye was a serious conversation. So he allowed an hour for a goodbye to let them know how essential they had been, how better his life had been for knowing them. They would forever have pieces of his heart. This Marlow knows: if the whole of life is a series of letting go’s, then what hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.

Marlow has spent the last month saying his goodbyes.

How to approach saying goodbye to the town on this day of departure was another issue.

Sayonara literally translated is “since it must be so.” Unlike auf wiedershen and au revoir, it does not cheat or postpone the pain of separation. It does not avoid the issue.

Goodbye (the short form of God be with you) and adios say too much. They seem try to bridge the distance, almost to deny it.

Sayonara says neither too much nor too little. It is a simple acceptance of fact.

It seems the best way to approach this day of departure.

Sayonara, Key West.

Copyright © 2016 From My Isle Seat