On saying goodbye forever

Not me ... a reflection on goodbyes that never again become hellos

Do you remember the first time that you realized that you might not see someone ever again?

I had the vague sense of this when I graduated from high school. I knew that we’d all go in different directions and that, while many of my classmates would become each others’ neighbours or even colleagues some day, I for sure wouldn’t be returning home.

But it didn’t strike me that I’d never see some of them ever again. I imagined that maybe our paths would cross, randomly, some day, somewhere. I didn’t think of the fact that many people’s faces would change so much that I wouldn’t recognize them if I did bump into them on a train or in a restaurant.

And then, in late 2004, I found Facebook. The almost-two years that had passed between graduation and university vanished as I could look up anyone’s name and see what they were up to. Hours gave way under the weight of my searching to see what happened to certain people. Many became virtual friends, of course.

It took awhile to realize that those connections were tenuous and would break pretty quickly. Some profiles would pop up more reguarly, and so I became an expert in what a person was up to, regardless of whether or not we were ever actually close. Our virtual friendship had been decided for us by Facebook. It’s them that chose to show me what Rachel is up to and not Gillian. But these friends and acquaintaces had choices too and many of them left the platform, or maybe unfriended me. Who knows? None of that is real anyway.

It wasn’t until I was finishing up my master’s that I had this overwhelming sense that I’d probably never see my classmates again. We had a small cohort, based at the University of Saskatchewan. Our classes were intense: portage trips and solitary days in the woods north of La Ronge. We became instantly close. Our only common interest: the social justice master’s of education foundations, was a good curator and everyone was someone I really liked.

When we said goodbye during our last summer together, we had just fled a massive fire at Anglin Lake. The whole class piled into vehicles and arrived at a Denny’s or something in Prince Albert at 5 AM smelling like fire. With our school site a smouldering pile of wood, we finished our classes in the living rooms of our classmates, with a kind though inadequate $15 meal voucher from the UofS for our lunches. It also felt like an apology for having sold off the campus that we were supposed to have our final session at, just a month before our classes started.

I knew I’d never see most of those folks ever again. I don’t live anywhere near any of them. I’ve stayed in touch with one, someone who I connected with and who shares news about her own successes and family with me. I also hear from another from time to time. She pops up on Twitter to comment on politics and I love seeing her handle, wishing that some day we could see one another again IRL. A few years after we finished our program, I did see two others, I think, at Amigos in Saskatoon. I had burned my voice out a few days earler in Regina and I couldn’t say a word. So I just sat there eating the faux crab burrito that I hate that I love.

But that feeling — knowing that you’re saying goodbye to someone forever — is such a foreign feeling for those of us who have lived online as much as we have lived offline. Online, no one dies. No one vanishes forever. Except, until they do. You might react quietly to yourself when you see the news, post the obligatory sad face or whatever on the obituary announcement and then that’s it. If, of course, they die.

But the vast majority of people are not dead; their deaths will come later, maybe after my own, but they vanish into the wave of obsucurity that just does not exist online. Maybe they unplugged. Maybe they never plugged in in the first place.

To be clear: this is a problem of the past. It’s only when I look back and realize that, of course, we would never see one another again that I get sad or nostalgic or whatever. The future is always pregnant with promise. Pregnancies are mostly successful, which is good news for our collective survival. But they fail often enough, and each miscarriage is a tragedy.

I have no problem with goodbyes. With my travel schedule, I say goodbye to people all the time. But I do hate to say goodbye to someone forever, especially when there is always the possibility of seeing one another again. “Goodbye forever” isn’t eloquent. English hasn’t figured out how to say this to someone, especially not if no one is dying. Maybe if we don’t speak it, if we don’t say “goodbye forever” it won’t come true.

And so we just leave it hanging. Goodbye, until the next time. When I’ll want to say to you “Goodbye forever” all over again.

(and Glenn, if by some miracle you’re out there and you read this, I think of you often)