Letting you in further to my obsession with Hamilton: one scene that sits with me is when George Washington is dictating his goodbye letter. In the song he states he’s going to “teach them how to say goodbye”.
It strikes me that this is something we’re not taught. For retirements in our professional lives, there isn’t a template to teach us the best way to say goodbye to the path we’ve been on, nor how to handle the grief of those around us who may have a tough time with the news. If we’re diagnosed with a life-limiting illness that grants us some time for goodbyes, there is certainly no Cole’s notes on the best way to approach bidding adieu to our relationships.
This all said, I recently saw something on LinkedIn which struck me profoundly and could help provide a cheat sheet of sorts: a professional goodbye for someone who was dying.
Perhaps you saw it too?
In the post the writer indicates they are dying of a stage four cancer. They give a brief summary of their journey, contemplate their successes and failures, impart some knowledge, give thanks for what they learned from their professional contacts, and provide a sense of closure to those who they’ve been linked with. And they provided a timeline of when they would close their account.
It was a beautiful post and extremely well done - clear, impassioned, and thoughtful. I’ve saved a screen shot to my phone in hopes that it can be a template for me to follow some day. I think about it often: what would I say to my peers and contacts in this same situation?
Today, I’m grateful that individual chose to ‘teach us how to say goodbye’. They will not see this post, but I hope they know their goodbye has inspired and moved individuals they never even met.
