A goodbye

RIC_0040, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I have also learned that a goodbye is an opportunity for kindness, for forgiveness, for intimacy, and ultimately for love and a deepening acceptance of life as it is instead of what it was or what we may have wanted it to be. Goodbyes can be poignant, sorrowful, sometimes a relief, and, now and then, an occasion for joy. They are always transition moments that, when embraced, can be the door to a new life both for ourselves and for others.

Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye

Life

RIC_7891-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     If there is one thing in life we can be sure of,

     it is that there will always be a next. Until there isn’t.

        Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye

Awareness

RIC_0317-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     When we have a heightened awareness of life’s fleeting
     impermanence, life itself becomes ever more precious and vivid. 

       Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye

Openness

RCC_6049-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


At the heart of love is openness. An unfettered openness of heart
and spirit, it seems to me, is what intimacy — with another and
with all life — really means. That openness is what I now believe
true detachment to be.

Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye