In our culture, we’re pretty awful at saying goodbye.
Whether we rush a hug before heading out the door or we get angry at each other instead of just being sad and sharing how we want to hold on.
Our culture is horrible at grieving.
We often stuff the grief, either by hiding behind the anger, or numbing it by moving on to the next thing.
For the past 2 1/2 years I co-facilitated a book club with a colleague.
It was really a lot more than a book club. The book was the opportunity to build community.
Today it was time to say goodbye.
Both my colleague and I are undergoing major life changes, so the ending was somewhat expected, and in the flow of our lives right now: many endings that are making space for the new.
Plus, the group had been slowly dwindling, so we were expecting the goodbye–it wasn’t a complete surprise. And even with all this understanding, the rhythm of our lives, and the rhythm of the group, there’s grief.
For me, the major grief is always having to let go of the vision I had for the group. Vision motivates me. When I lead, there is always a vision I’m standing in. I’ve learned that I have to hold that vision lightly, otherwise I can get tempted to force it. My vision may still come true, but it is often in the letting it go that ease comes forth. Sometimes it happens in a new way, that I had not predicted. Other times, something else comes forth all together.
This group had bonded very strongly through covid, forming closer, more authentic relationships than before.
Even in the grief for this ending, this death, I have much gratitude.
In nature, compost is both death and life.
I’m grateful for how this group will compost for each and every one of us. The experience has been an impactful one, so we’ll all carry it into our next creations. These experiences will help the new ideas ferment and grow. I trust this to be true because I can already see new ideas sprouting from under the compost.
I’m also grateful for the muscles everyone in the group grew, in learning to say: “this doesn’t work for me anymore” instead of the vague lie we often tell each other in professional spaces when we step away: “I’m just too busy.”
I’m grateful for the goodbyes in person and the spaces to reflect and grow together, even in the practice of saying goodbye, more wholeheartedly, more authentically, more alive-ly.
But what I am most grateful to this group for, is for helping me love white women who are doing our damnedest to defy this racist System, that we got trained to uphold. Our humanity got coopted into supporting a beast. We recover our humanity facing the impact of this beast on us and our world. In relationship with this group I grew in clarity for who I am, what I’m up to, and where to channel my love for humanity and justice.
I’m thankful I said yes to starting this group, 2 1/2 years ago.
I’m sad we said goodbye.
But I am really proud of how we did it. Authentically, soulfully, genuinely.
Even in the ending…this group brings me hope for humanity, for the “souls of white folk.”*
*The Souls of white folk is an essay by W.E.B. DuBois
“High in the tower, where I sit above the loud complaining of the human sea, I know many souls that toss and whirl and pass, but none there are that intrigue me more than the Souls of White Folk.”—W.E.B. DuBois