“
There is a difference between saying goodbye and letting go. Goodbye is not permanent. You can meet years later as old friends and share what happened in your life. You can smile and laugh about all the nonsense that you both went through. However, letting go is being okay with never seeing this person ever again…being okay with never knowing how their life turned out…being okay with fifty or more years of silence… being okay with running into that person at a grocery store and having them not acknowledge your presence. This is the part of life that doesn’t sit well with me and never will. It tears my heart in pieces, robs me of gratitude, drains me of anything positive and eats at the faith that holds on. It goes against kindness.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
There is something about losing your mother that is permanent and inexpressable - a wound that will never quite heal.
”
”
Susan Wiggs (The Goodbye Quilt)
“
Goodbye is too permanent. Goodbye has the risk of never seeing each other again. But good morning is full of possibilities.
”
”
Denise Grover Swank (After Math (Off the Subject, #1))
“
Then what are you doing here, Luce?" he asked, his voice elevating. "You want time? You want space? Fine. I gave that to you. But then you keep throwing yourself back into my life whenever the hell you choose. No warning. No apology, No permanence. You show up at my front door and sneak out the back without so much as a goodbye," he continued, never taking his eyes off of me. "You couldn't take the up and down. The roller coaster was going to kill you. You know what I can't take? You in and back out of my life before I even knew you were there in the first place. You looking at me the way you are now and then able to turn your back and walk away five minutes later." His hands clenched over my cheek before he lowered it. "That is what will kill me. I can't live wondering if you're still mine to claim.
”
”
Nicole Williams (Clash (Crash, #2))
“
He waved to the city and said good-bye.
The city responded by carrying on the way it always did, traffic moving forward uninterrupted, without slowing, as if it were trying to demonstrate its permanence and show him it would still be there if he ever wanted to return. That promise was the best and only thing he could ask of it.
”
”
Matthew J. Kirby (The Clockwork Three)
“
The other part of me wanted to get out and stay out, but this was the part I never listened to. Because if I ever had I would have stayed in the town where I was born and worked in the hardware store and married the boss's daughter and had five kids and read them the funny paper on Sunday morning and smacked their heads when they got out of line and squabbled with the wife about how much spending money they were to get and what programs they could have on the radio or TV set. I might even get rich - small-town rich, an eight-room house, two cars in the garage, chicken every Sunday and the Reader's Digest on the living room table, the wife with a cast-iron permanent and me with a brain like a sack of Portland cement. You take it, friend. I'll take the big sordid dirty crooked city.
”
”
Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye (Philip Marlowe, #6))
“
The pen feels unnatural in my hand. It’s so much weightier than pencil. Permanent. There are no erasers, in life.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (The Last Time We Say Goodbye)
“
I always say a little prayer when I put cakes in the oven,” remarked Eve, as she stopped to kiss Rose good-bye.
“What do you say?”
“I say, ‘Please, God, don’t let me forget I’ve put that cake in the oven.
”
”
Hilary McKay (Permanent Rose (Casson Family, #3))
“
When one learns eventually that home is not an object, comfort begins to return.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
The human heart is the most complicated creation I’ve ever encountered. The formation of the cosmos was easier to understand.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers—so many caring people in this world. —Fred Rogers
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
Stop that Stuart," Patty said as Stuart struggled with the suitcases, which were too heavy for him, she thought. (Almost everything was way too heavy for Stuart.)" Just put those down. Besides," Patty said, "where will you go? You don't have anyplace to go." But Stuart took her hand and held it for a moment against his closed eyes, and despite the many occasions when Patty had wanted him to go, and the several occasions when she had tried to make him go, despite the fact that he was at his most enragingly pathetic, for once she could think of nothing, nothing at all that he could be trying to shame her into or shame her out of, and so it occurred to her that this he would really leave---that he was simply saying good-bye. All along, Patty had been unaware that time is as adhesive as love, and that the more time you spend with someone the greater the likelihood of finding yourself with a permanent sort of thing to deal with that people casually refer to as "friendship," as if that were the end of the matter,when the truth is that even if "your friend" does something annoying, or if you and "your friend" decided that you hate each other, or if "your friend" moves away and you lose each other's address, you still have a friendship, and although it can change shape, look different in different lights, become an embarrassment or an encumbrance or a sorrow, it can't simply cease to have existed, no matter how far into the past it sinks, so attempts to disavow or destroy it will not merely constitute betrayals of friendship but, more practically, are bound to be fruitless, causing damage only to the humans involved rather than to that gummy jungle(friendship)in which those humans have entrapped themselves, so if sometime in the future you're not going to want to have been a particular person's friend, or if you're not going to want to have had that particular friendship you and that person can make with one another, then don't be friends with that person at all, don't talk to that person, don't go anywhere near that person, because as soon as you start to see something from that person's point of view (which, inevitably, will be as soon as you stand next to that person) common ground is sure to slide under your feet.
”
”
Deborah Eisenberg (The Stories (So Far))
“
She hated saying goodbye forever. It felt so permanent. And who knew where life would take her in the future?
”
”
Michelle Madow (Diamonds are Forever (The Secret Diamond Sisters, #3))
“
He was forty-eight — an age at which permanence of habits begins to be predictable.
”
”
James Hilton (Good-Bye, Mr. Chips)
“
All this time, I'd assumed that being a doctor meant performing miracles. Fixing bodies. Saving lives. I had hardly considered the flip side of that coin: that it also meant looking a patient's family in the eye and telling them to say their last goodbyes. That it meant staring down the permanence of death over and over again, until it stopped feeling like something to be prevented at all costs and instead became something to be occasionally embraced.
”
”
Shirlene Obuobi (On Rotation)
“
Losing something or someone you love hurts. I don’t understand, fully, why having to say goodbye wounds us so deeply but I do know that loss is part of God’s plan. On this side of heaven nothing is permanent. He gives and takes away. What we do in between that time of His giving and His taking is where you’ll find His blessings. Be thankful for the gift that was given…no matter how short. Be thankful.
”
”
Jason Versey (A Walk with Prudence)
“
In my isolation, I dreamt of power. My daydreams and fantasies were all about how I could win, how I could be number one, how I could have my cake and eat it too. When those dreams were fulfilled, I felt nothing. The love-sized hole within me grew larger and larger as I died by my own hand, by my own mind. During my transformation, I found what I needed to fill the hole. I found peace, joy, and connection. To power, I waved goodbye. I thought that being a loving, spiritual being meant sacrificing that triumph-hungry drive within. For much too long, I ignored these urges, believing them to be the opposite of love while I cycled in and out of love awareness. The day that my love mindset became a permanent state of mind was the day I realized that love is not the opposite of power. Love is power. Love is the strongest power there is.
”
”
Vironika Tugaleva (The Love Mindset)
“
How can I possibly say good-bye to the person I am so hopelessly, deeply and permanently in love with? Because I love you Chris. I do. I will always be in love with you, even though you'll never love me back. You have been my sanctuary this year. You saved me. Do you know that? You saved me. And I wish that you would let me save you.
”
”
Jessica Park (Left Drowning (Left Drowning, #1))
“
My son, you are just an infant now, but on that day when the world disrobes of its alluring cloak, it is then that I pray this letter is in your hands.
Listen closely, my dear child, for I am more than that old man in the dusty portrait beside your bed. I was once a little boy in my mother’s arms and a babbling toddler on my father's lap.
I played till the sun would set and climbed trees with ease and skill. Then I grew into a fine young man with shoulders broad and strong. My bones were firm and my limbs were straight; my hair was blacker than a raven's beak. I had a spring in my step and a lion's roar. I travelled the world, found love and married. Then off to war I bled in battle and danced with death.
But today, vigor and grace have forsaken me and left me crippled.
Listen closely, then, as I have lived not only all the years you have existed, but another forty more of my own.
My son, We take this world for a permanent place; we assume our gains and triumphs will always be; that all that is dear to us will last forever.
But my child, time is a patient hunter and a treacherous thief: it robs us of our loved ones and snatches up our glory. It crumbles mountains and turns stone to sand. So who are we to impede its path?
No, everything and everyone we love will vanish, one day.
So take time to appreciate the wee hours and seconds you have in this world. Your life is nothing but a sum of days so why take any day for granted? Don't despise evil people, they are here for a reason, too, for just as the gift salt offers to food, so do the worst of men allow us to savor the sweet, hidden flavor of true friendship.
Dear boy, treat your elders with respect and shower them with gratitude; they are the keepers of hidden treasures and bridges to our past. Give meaning to your every goodbye and hold on to that parting embrace just a moment longer--you never know if it will be your last.
Beware the temptation of riches and fame for both will abandon you faster than our own shadow deserts us at the approach of the setting sun. Cultivate seeds of knowledge in your soul and reap the harvest of good character.
Above all, know why you have been placed on this floating blue sphere, swimming through space, for there is nothing more worthy of regret than a life lived void of this knowing.
My son, dark days are upon you. This world will not leave you with tears unshed. It will squeeze you in its talons and lift you high, then drop you to plummet and shatter to bits . But when you lay there in pieces scattered and broken, gather yourself together and be whole once more. That is the secret of those who know.
So let not my graying hairs and wrinkled skin deceive you that I do not understand this modern world. My life was filled with a thousand sacrifices that only I will ever know and a hundred gulps of poison I drank to be the father I wanted you to have.
But, alas, such is the nature of this life that we will never truly know the struggles of our parents--not until that time arrives when a little hand--resembling our own--gently clutches our finger from its crib.
My dear child, I fear that day when you will call hopelessly upon my lifeless corpse and no response shall come from me. I will be of no use to you then but I hope these words I leave behind will echo in your ears that day when I am no more. This life is but a blink in the eye of time, so cherish each moment dearly, my son.
”
”
Shakieb Orgunwall
“
You know it is not the blood but the water of river Hydadpas which flows in my veins and you are the mermaid permanently residing in that water
”
”
Shahid Hussain Raja
“
They feared a death at home; instead, they died searching for life.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
She experienced life with an emotional meter permanently set to high.
”
”
Melinda Leigh (Her Last Goodbye (Morgan Dane #2))
“
Betrayal was fucked up like that. It left the kind of scars on your soul that were so deep and permanent they were a constant reminder of the battle you endured.
”
”
Faith Andrews (Garden of Goodbyes)
“
Make tea. As the water boils, you think about the “her’s” like a love list. Valerie in the 4th grade, Naomi in the 6th, Linda in high school, Sammie in college, Camille from work, and the latest one to have signed your heart and left: Sophia. You think through each girl, wondering what she’s eating for breakfast. You miss them, not because you want a relationship, but because love only works in permanent marker.
”
”
Kristian Ventura (The Goodbye Song)
“
I felt untethered to anything real or permanent when I was a kid. Maybe this is me making up for it. But I’m grateful, and I think it’s the gratitude that makes me feel connected. I’m grateful to the ocean just for being here.
”
”
Emma Scott (Between Hello and Goodbye)
“
In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one’s final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or “It’s O.K.” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.”
People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system’s expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives.
”
”
Atul Gawande
“
After many years of knowing her, she died. Instead of leaving me with a heartbreak, she left behind wonderful memories. Memories of teasing me and pretending to fall asleep when I walk into her room. There are no tears to be shed. Instead, I celebrated our friendship. Twenty-two years of smiles and laughter. Unhurried narration of her life stories and hugs. Rewarding me with birthday cards and Christmas greetings. Scolding me with a smile before each departure, and winks by the door before she left my office. Each time, I stood and watched her struggle to get into her car. Even with all her physical struggles, she never missed the chance to visit me every three months until she was taken away from me permanently. Her death. Her departure from earth. As much as I struggle with the event, I would not call it untimely. I said my farewell, but I still cherish what we had. A sempiternal friendship
”
”
Fidelis O. Mkparu
“
Spending one’s final days in an ICU because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie attached to a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said good-bye or “It’s okay” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.
”
”
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
“
The story of displacement and loss is woven into the fabric of human history. One day it's them, the next day it's you. But as generations pass, most forget that their people, too, have suffered. Some, though, still hold the empathy in their souls. But others choose not to; they choose to help themselves before helping others. Those are the souls who never find true happiness. Their hearts are never full.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one’s final days in an ICU because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie attached to a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said good-bye or “It’s okay” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.
”
”
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
“
Essay So many poems about the deaths of animals. Wilbur’s toad, Kinnell’s porcupine, Eberhart’s squirrel, and that poem by someone—Hecht? Merrill?— about cremating a woodchuck. But mostly I remember the outrageous number of them, as if every poet, I too, had written at least one animal elegy; with the result that today when I came to a good enough poem by Edwin Brock about finding a dead fox at the edge of the sea I could not respond; as if permanent shock had deadened me. And then after a moment I began to give way to sorrow (watching myself sorrowlessly the while), not merely because part of my being had been violated and annulled, but because all these many poems over the years have been necessary,—suitable and correct. This has been the time of the finishing off of the animals. They are going away—their fur and their wild eyes, their voices. Deer leap and leap in front of the screaming snowmobiles until they leap out of existence. Hawks circle once or twice around their shattered nests and then they climb to the stars. I have lived with them fifty years, we have lived with them fifty million years, and now they are going, almost gone. I don’t know if the animals are capable of reproach. But clearly they do not bother to say good-bye.
”
”
Anthony Holden (Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them)
“
As Dr. Fauci’s policies took hold globally, 300 million humans fell into dire poverty, food insecurity, and starvation. “Globally, the impact of lockdowns on health programs, food production, and supply chains plunged millions of people into severe hunger and malnutrition,” said Alex Gutentag in Tablet Magazine.27 According to the Associated Press (AP), during 2020, 10,000 children died each month due to virus-linked hunger from global lockdowns. In addition, 500,000 children per month experienced wasting and stunting from malnutrition—up 6.7 million from last year’s total of 47 million—which can “permanently damage children physically and mentally, transforming individual tragedies into a generational catastrophe.”28 In 2020, disruptions to health and nutrition services killed 228,000 children in South Asia.29 Deferred medical treatments for cancers, kidney failure, and diabetes killed hundreds of thousands of people and created epidemics of cardiovascular disease and undiagnosed cancer. Unemployment shock is expected to cause 890,000 additional deaths over the next 15 years.30,31 The lockdown disintegrated vital food chains, dramatically increased rates of child abuse, suicide, addiction, alcoholism, obesity, mental illness, as well as debilitating developmental delays, isolation, depression, and severe educational deficits in young children. One-third of teens and young adults reported worsening mental health during the pandemic. According to an Ohio State University study,32 suicide rates among children rose 50 percent.33 An August 11, 2021 study by Brown University found that infants born during the quarantine were short, on average, 22 IQ points as measured by Baylor scale tests.34 Some 93,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2020—a 30 percent rise over 2019.35 “Overdoses from synthetic opioids increased by 38.4 percent,36 and 11 percent of US adults considered suicide in June 2020.37 Three million children disappeared from public school systems, and ERs saw a 31 percent increase in adolescent mental health visits,”38,39 according to Gutentag. Record numbers of young children failed to reach crucial developmental milestones.40,41 Millions of hospital and nursing home patients died alone without comfort or a final goodbye from their families. Dr. Fauci admitted that he never assessed the costs of desolation, poverty, unhealthy isolation, and depression fostered by his countermeasures. “I don’t give advice about economic things,”42 Dr. Fauci explained. “I don’t give advice about anything other than public health,” he continued, even though he was so clearly among those responsible for the economic and social costs.
”
”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
“
In The White Album, Joan Didion famously wrote down her packing list, radical at the time—Tampax!—and revealing in its intimacy and simplicity. As a storytelling device, it was admirable in what it told the reader about the writer, about her life, and about what it meant to be a woman in the world, without seeming to say much. Didion wrote the list in 1979, but it has gained new life in the last ten years, surpassing, at times, the popularity of her “Goodbye to All That” essay about leaving New York, which has seemingly been redone by every writer leaving the city ever since. Less mentioned is the fact she returned twenty-five years later and made it her permanent home. (Does any other city require a defense of departure? Did people feel the need to declare why they were leaving Paris? Was it that New York was an identity and other cities were just places to live, or does New York simply attract a higher concentration of narcissists?)
”
”
Glynnis MacNicol (I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman's Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris)
“
They had a date at eight every night. If it was raining, if it was snowing; if there was a moon, or if there was none. It wasn’t new, it hadn’t just come up. Last year it had been that way, the year before, the year before that. But it wasn’t going to keep on that way much longer: just hello at eight, good-bye at twelve. In a little while, in just a week or two, their date was going to be a permanent one; twenty-four hours a day. In just a little while from now, in June. And boy, they both agreed, June sure was slow in coming around this year. It never seemed to get here.
”
”
Cornell Woolrich (Rendezvous in Black)
“
Rather than seeing each departure as permanent goodbyes, treat them as natural farewells.
”
”
Soon Ju Kim (Samsoon and Farewells (Samsoon Adventures))
“
A silent walk with other families carrying bags, belongings and regrets.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
With each step, Tareq knew this was another permanent goodbye.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
Permanent. There are no erasers, in life.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (The Last Time We Say Goodbye)
“
The story of displacement and loss is woven into the fabric of human history.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
From the back seat, he stared at the blue accessible parking tag she must’ve ordered. Above the seated figure in a wheelchair, the placard was stamped in capital letters:
PERMANENT.
Like I need a reminder that this isn’t temporary?
As they merged into traffic, the hangcard swung from the rearview mirror like a noose.
”
”
Carol Van Den Hende (Goodbye, Orchid (Goodbye, Orchid, #2))
“
The other part of me wanted to get out and stay out, but this was the part I never listened to.
Because if I ever had I would have stayed in the town where I was born and worked in the hardware store and married the boss's daughter and had five kids and read them the funny paper on Sunday morning and smacked there heads when the get out of line and squabbled with the wife about how much spending money they were to get and what programs the could have on the radio or TV set. I might even have got rich -small town rich- an eight-room house, two cars in the garage, chicken every Sunday and the Reader's Digest on the living room table, the wife with cast iron permanent and me with a brain like a sack of Portland cement. You take it, friend. I'll take the big sordid dirty crooked city.
”
”
Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye (Philip Marlowe, #6))
“
Hello, Strange Land,
please take care of us.
Hello, Strangers, please
don't hate us.
We know this will never be
home and we will never
be yours.
But please remember our
hearts beat and our
blood flows.
And our pain, only a few
people know.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
They were from what some would call different worlds - but to me, you are all from the same world. You have the same hearts, needs, wants and desires. You come from the same beginning, and your earth will have the same end.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
You see, words fade through time, as do faces. But it's actions that linger, yours and those of others. They stay in the mind and the heart even as your body grows old and fragile. They transform into regrets and gratitude. Their effects outlive your brief stay on this planet.
The best you can do is pray that your deeds lead, in some way, to making someone's life better - if even for a moment. Especially at a time when their lives have been all but destroyed by the hunters.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
I see many good people from the countries who come to say hello. They smile at us and make us human again after being yelled at by their military and police. They make me remember, every country has good people and bad people. Just like mine.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
Please don't be scared of us. We are more terrified of your reactions. We are broken people who are haunted by our past, our future and our dreams. We narrowly escaped death, the war, the rapes, the murders and the killers - we have family who didn't - please don't think those monsters represent us. We swam through our country's blood and corpses barely keeping our heads afloat to breathe, to survive and to live another day. We left our homes, we left our history. We left our loved ones without the time to mourn them. We brought our hearts, but they have been shattered into tiny pieces. We didn't come here to harm you, we've come to heal.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
I hope you will provide that warmth, be that helper, do what you can to make that world a better place. Because when I meet you - and I will - there will be a reckoning. There always is.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
So yes, you were born to die. But in between, you are meant to live.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
Distance often safeguards the heart. It preserves and shields you from letting the pain enter your spirit, changing you forever. Bridging that distance can make you hurt. But that isn't a sign of weakness; it's the power of compassion and love -- the two elements that can save a world.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
Unspoken connections happen when souls become intertwined. Most last for fractions of a second, but some a lifetime and beyond.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
Sometimes the most beautiful love happens at the most unforeseen times with the most unexpected people.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
Spending one’s final days in an ICU because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie attached to a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said good-bye or “It’s okay” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.” People with serious illness have priorities besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys find that their top concerns include avoiding suffering, strengthening relationships with family and friends, being mentally aware, not being a burden on others, and achieving a sense that their life is complete.
”
”
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
“
The first child tricks you into having more!
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)
“
As people migrate, they bring with them their languages, foods and cultures. And as the years pass, they adapt what they’ve brought to fit into their new lives and countries.
”
”
Atia Abawi (A Land of Permanent Goodbyes)