Saying goodbye
Nothing is all you need to say
Sometimes you know exactly what you should say to another person. Occasionally what you say can affect a person in an unimaginable way and it can be difficult to find the words that will evoke the best feeling in someone else. Often we feel it's necessary to say anything just to show how much we care and not realise the consequences. And sometimes it's most appropriate to say simply nothing.
I'd just hefted my luggage into the boot of the taxi. A full set of golf clubs in a tired red golf bag lay next to my green school bag. Like so many of the things I had recently taken from that house, I couldn't tell you how long I'd had the golf clubs, nor whence they had come, but the green bag had seen me through five years of trips on the school train, to and from Lancashire, and another three during my trips down to Southampton. Now, like me, it was leaving Gomshall Avenue for the last time.
I opened the passenger door and clambered into the seat next to the driver. I mumbled the words East Croydon Station and relaxed onto the head-rest - not bothering to take a final look back as there wasn't really any point. The memories I wanted to keep had stopped accumulating six months previously.
The driver acknowledged my request with a nod of his head and shifted the car into gear. No words were necessary and I was glad that I was offered none. The stereo was on, tuned to a local station and a song was fading out - I forget which - only to be replaced with one I was familiar with.
The journey to the station passed quickly and I just sat listening to Freddy Mercury singing his goodbye. The song's lyrics were exactly what I needed to hear, and although I was saying farewell to a place where I'd spent half my life the message I took from that song was one of hope and promise for the future. I was smiling.
At that time of night there was little traffic on the roads but the song finished before we reached the station. We rode the rest of the way in silence.
I can't imagine what I looked like as I stood on the platform waiting for the train to take me to my new life, with a green bag at my side and golf clubs over my shoulder, but I do know that the smile didn't leave my face that evening. The things that had happened in the past - the good and the bad - didn't matter anymore. I wouldn't forget them but there was no need to make myself remember them any more, because as I'd just heard, these are the days of our lives.
People say goodbye in many ways. Freddy did it through a song; some people do it with a eulogy; others do it with flowers at a grave-side. I did it in a taxi on the way to the station.
And I'd like to thank that man for his silence, as it was the best thing he could have said to me.