Blog by: Lata Advani Viseu

“Goodbye doesn’t mean forever
Let me tell you goodbye doesn’t mean
We’ll never be together again
If you wake up and I’m not there, I won’t
Be long away
‘Cause the things you do my Goodbye Girl
Will bring me back to you”
Goodbye Girl – David A. Gates

The hardest part of “hellos” in some ways, is knowing you probably will have to say goodbye someday. 

Some people come into your life for a few moments, some for a season, some for decades and some remain in your heart forever.

There are some people you wish you had never met but in the end you realize that they came into your life because there were lessons you had to learn from them.

Life happens and people change. You lose touch with people that are close to you, sometimes by choice and sometimes not. 

There are times when people move away to another city or country. Sometimes it’s a job that takes someone away or a divorce or death. Many times there is nothing we can do to change or stop it.

Other times it’s a misunderstanding or something petty that could have been avoided. All those beautiful shared memories are forgotten in an instant.

There are people you may meet when on vacation or at an event and you instantly feel a connection but you may never see them again.

The people that you feel closest to are people that you have shared good times, hard times and many times the ones you share your blood with, your close family. 

For many of us, there are special bonds with our children, our siblings and parents that are in our DNA and we can’t help but care about them and feel sad when it’s time to say goodbye when we live in different parts of the world. 

I think the hardest goodbye is letting go of your children. You want them to go fly on their own and be happy living their life but at the same time there’s a piece of you that seems to be missing when they are not with you.

The best way, I have found, is to live in the present, putting your focus in the moment. Worrying only happens when you’re thinking of the past or the future, the two things you cannot do anything about.

Sometimes it’s hard to see the “good” in “goodbyes” but I guess, if it’s hard to say goodbye then it was worth it. It means that we have something special that causes us to feel sad. 

So goodbye doesn’t mean forever, we’ll meet again in our memories or when we see each other again.

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” – Winnie the Pooh

“Goodbye may seem forever. Farewell is like the end, but in my heart is the memory and there you will always be.” — Disney

“Saying goodbye doesn’t mean anything. It’s the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it.” — Trey Parker

“The easiest way to find out how you feel about someone. Say goodbye.” — Phil Knight

“You can kiss your family and friends goodbye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.” — Frederick Buechner

“Goodbyes are not forever, goodbyes are not the end. They simply mean I’ll miss you until we meet again.” — Unknown

“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is even if we are apart, I’ll always be with you.” — A. A. Milne