Ty's essay

Ty LeVarge
Mr Hamilton Salsich
English 02
May 4, 2009

Goodbye:
An Essay on How Two Poems Relate to My Life

What is the action of separating and saying goodbye? Separation is a natural cycle that takes place for everyone. We all have to say goodbye to someone during one part of our life. Everyone meets someone new, and they soon have to say goodbye for a short time, or maybe forever

In the poem by Emily Dickinson, she describes parting as a separation from everyone and everything around you. In the first stanza, she says, “If immortality unveil /A third event to me.” This says that she has seen too much of being partitioned with family members and other beings she loved. She seems to have written this stanza with sorrow as if she has lost many dear to her life. Similarly, in the second stanza, she says, “Parting is all we know of Heaven, / And all we need of hell.” Here, she says that when you die, wherever you go, you will have parted from the entire world. She says that where you go after you pass away does not matter, because you will have parted from all that you have had and all that you have left behind. Overall, her poem seems to have been made out of the tears that she has shed from the years before.

In the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, she expresses parting as a good thing and that it should also be something to be wary of. In the poem “Adios”, she says that you should get to know the word “goodbye” and to bond with it. In the first stanza, she says, “Use it. Learn where it begins, / the small alphabet of departure” and she says that you should know it inside and out. Similarly, she says near the end of the poem, “Think of things that disappear. / Think of what you love best, / what brings tears to your eyes.” She means that you should remember everyone that you love and know that at any instance, they can disappear. You may see someone you love before you go to school, but after school, you come home to find them to have disappeared from your life. Together, being something good, and something that should not be tampered with can run its natural course without you.

At the end of my career at Pine Point, I and many others will be parting from each other. “We were part of something special” is a quote from my speech and I believe it to be true. As the class of 2009, we have shared a bond that has lasted years. We were inseparable for the time we have been together. Now, we are nearing the end of the year as ninth graders and we have cherished the memories that we have had through the years. From random events of joy, to times where we have had tears of sorrow, we enjoyed every moment. We shared it all and we went through it all together. Now, it is May and we are nearing the final weeks of being together as a class. There are many times where we wish to have gone back in time to relive those moments and to save time so that we can stay together. We can still save time by spending as much of the time we have left enjoying ourselves and sharing with friends. We can still IM and Facebook each other, but we will never feel the same.

Parting is everyone’s worst fear and greatest enemy. However, without separation, there would be no reason to truly love someone. Everyone would exist in unity, but without true loving and care for all people. For anyone to get the biggest benefit before being severed from those you love, you and all others need to live together, and live out loud.