A Letter to say Goodbye

What I Wish I Could Say

Writing a Letter When You Didn’t Get to Say Goodbye

For many of us, advancing age or impending illness provide us with the poignant but important opportunity to say what we want to say when we know we are losing someone we love. We know we’re supposed to ‘live each day as if it’s our last’ but how often in our busy lives do we really do that? Knowing that our time with someone is finite has an incredible ability to focus our hearts and minds on what is most important. If you did have some sense of what was to come, I hope you made the best of it, packed as much love as possible into the time you did have and there were no words left unsaid.

However, for some of us, this is not a possibility. Deaths that were sudden or far away, unexpected or untimely, deaths that occur when separated by inner or outer distance, often leave us with a tremendous feeling of ‘unfinished business’ where we literally did not have a chance to say goodbye. Endings like these can often leave us with a swirling pool of emotions; shock, anger, regret, guilt and immense sadness at not having the chance to say what we’d want to have said had we only known.

At times like these, some people have found it helpful to write a letter to the one they love, expressing everything they wish they had said, everything they would have said if they’d had the chance. If this might be a helpful ritual for you, here are just a few ways you might choose to say what you want and need to say.

Do you want or need to apologise for not being there?
Are you angry or frustrated at not being there or at what happened?
Are you sad about not being there?
Do you feel things might have been different if you were?
Do you want to tell them how you’re doing?
Do you have regrets or stand in need of forgiveness? Do they?
Can you put all your feelings into words?
Can you tell them how much you love and miss them?
Can you bring yourself to say Goodbye?
Your letter can be short or long, poetic or simple, as long as it allows you to say what you wish you had the chance to say. No doubt it will get through to them – one way or another.