Through the Looking Glass: Saying goodbye is hard to do
Coping with death in different ways
By Sarah Delia, staff writer
Posted on October 2, 2006

As I made my epic journey back to my home in Northern Virginia, thousands of thoughts rushed through my head as I peered out the passenger seat window watching trees and cars blur by. I hadn’t been home since June, and even then, for about three days. I figured it was time to get some home cooking, sleep in my comfortable bed, and make sure my parents still recognized me. But going home is often filled with nostalgia and for a purpose — and my trip included both. I was homesick, and I had the important job of saying goodbye to a close friend who recently died.

Not being able to attend the funeral of this particular person who passed away very suddenly, I was completely distressed; he had been my friend, boyfriend at one time, not to mention Homecoming date. But with no car and more classes than I could handle, I was stranded in Harrisonburg, unable to say goodbye.

During my weekend home, I frantically searched through new papers, online articles, and asked by word of mouth, what had be done with his body after the funeral, but that information seemed to be hiding from me, and each time I heard something I thought was fact, someone else would contradict.

Sunday morning, the day of my departure back to Harrisonburg, came rolling around all too quickly for me, and I could have sworn that the word “failure” had been tattooed onto my forehead. I was certain that my friend was either laughing at my silly attempts to find him, or shaking his head in disappointment that I couldn’t. I paced my room wondering what to do, trying to formulate some plan but coming away more frustrated and sad than before. I had a duty to do: to see his tombstone for myself, acknowledge and accept his death, say a prayer and be done with it. I wanted so much to have a form of release and unburden myself with tears that had accumulated over the past week. I wanted to talk to him, apologize for dumping him in the 10th grade, tell him I was happy for his recent achievements in school, and say that was the best damn Homecoming I’d ever been to. All of this, I thought, could and would be accomplished if only I could go to the cemetery.

My mother saw me on the couch when I gave up on my restlessness, seeing that tears were welling up and ready to explode down my cheeks. After the silly banter back-and-forth of “What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” I grew tired of holding in tears and not being able to communicate with my friend, so I cried with my mom in the house that I once couldn’t wait to get out of, but now after a year of college, wanted to crawl back into and never leave. Although I used to make a habit of bickering with her, as my mother stroked my head and explained that just because I couldn’t make it to a funeral, wake, or cemetery did not mean that my friend would think any less of me or that I was in any way a failure, all I could do was shake my head in agreement.

I still wish I could have gone to the funeral and that going to the cemetery may have brought me some kind of artificial closure — but I must also say that not having the opportunity has made me come to various realizations. The closure that cemeteries supply, while warranted, are for the living to have — not the dead. And just because you’re in a certain location does not make you any more closer to their physical or spiritual presence, but rather, any location does. I’ll miss my friend dearly, but now, as I sit here writing this, I feel like this is the most closure I will ever get — and the best way to say goodbye to a life that made others’ just as wonderful as he was.

Sarah Delia is a sophomore English and art history major who is saying goodbye.