Rashid A Mughal
PARTING with someone you deeply like, love and admire is not easy. It tells on your heart, mind, attitude and behaviour. It is unfathomable and beyond imagination, depending on how close and deep is your relationship with some one you are parting with. It is deeply saddening and leaves a scar which no one can ever erase, particularly when you know that you will perhaps never see someone you are parting with, again. It is, however, little bit consoling when you know parting is not permanent and it is only timely for a few days, weeks, months or even years, though it is painful and definitely tells on your health and state of mind. Hope is the only factor which keeps you alive with a belief that one day you will meet and see someone you have been badly missing. Perhaps the most famous goodbye quote is from Shakespeare’s drama “Romeo and Juliet”, the morning after Romeo and Juliet spent night together and Romeo has to leave quickly for fear of being caught. Juliet says goodbye to him in these words: “Good night, good night! Parting is such a sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be morrow.” The sorrow of parting is sweet because after it she will thrill to the thought of their next meeting.
The Romans called it: “ave atque vale”- hail and farewell. Psychological literature is full of studies of separation anxiety, grief and loss. There is a denial phase to grief in which the bereaved believe that the lost one will come back, and so there may be certain sweetness in the sorrow of parting. As we usually find, Shakespeare seemed to know all that, and wrapped it up neatly in this four word phrase. Julius Caesar puts it in following words: “And whether we shall meet again I know not. Therefore our everlasting farewell take: For ever, and for ever, farewell, If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; If not, why then, this parting was well made”. Every time we say goodbye, we die a little.
This is, of course, better than dying altogether, which may explain why there is sweetness even in sorrow. Juliet’s lament about her separation from her very new acquaintance was enhanced by the thought that it would be temporary: that she would see Romeo again. Real life, however, offers no such certainties, and neither does Life. In a “here-today, gone-tomorrow” world, there is a certain satisfaction in having existed at all. The exuberant joy of being is tempered by the wistful knowledge that nothing is forever. Then after a while, this denial gives way to anger, fear, guilt and depression. Loss of energy, fatigue, headaches and chest pains may occur before the inevitable adjustment. Parting, neuropsychologists say, is a stretching of emotional bonds: the sorrow is tinged with the sweetness of the memories.
Our lives are full of occasions when we come together and then part from our family members, friends or colleagues. To meet, to know, to love and then to part is the sad tale of every human heart. The situations when we have to part are many – we grow up and leave our parents and the small hometown to go to the city for our higher education, we get a job and go to still bigger cities, we change jobs and go to different places and may be, go abroad, we get married and move to a different place to set up our own family and so on and so forth. Nowadays changing jobs has become very common and instead of the earlier pursuit of hunting for jobs people are jumping jobs. Going abroad is also a very common feature and almost every household has someone working abroad.
It is a human tendency that everyone wants to be happy. Happiness has its own feelings and flair. But one must realize that it is not perpetual and everlasting. Happiness decreases and goes down when a person uses, watches and experiences same things every day. A person buys a new car and that very day he experiences the highest level of happiness as for him it might be a dream come true. Slowly and gradually with each day passing that happiness level keeps sliding until it becomes a “daily routine” and that first day excitement of buying a new car is almost gone. So happiness is temporary, not long lasting and ultimately vanishes.
But compare it with parting with a best friend, you love too much and are extremely attached with closeness which is inseparable. Imagine that a friend is leaving you for good, with almost no chance of meeting in future. Parting with such a friend is not only sad and sorrowful but leaves a scar on your heart and mind, forever. Pain and agony are too small words to describe that feeling. That kind of parting sadness stays with you for the rest of the life and keeps on haunting you as long as you are alive. The time spent together, sweet memories of late night discussions, arguments and sometimes meaningful silence are episodes one can never forget. Perhaps 5th December 2020 was that kind of day. Saying goodbye is awkward. We never know how or when to say it. It’s always too soon or too late. It’s never the right time. What should we do? We should realize that it’s always the right time, because once we’ve shared a heartfelt goodbye, we’re ready to embrace each other with a real hello, and face a final “good bye”. To quote Tennyson, “It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”
— The writer is former DG (Emigration) and consultant ILO, IOM.
