How odd it is to say goodbye to someone you never knew. You may not realize the impact of someone with whom you rarely saw interaction until years after, but even then it may strike you odd as if you never knew them. I think of this sometimes; relationships formed in moments and broken only a few later.
For instance, that little boy Sean in my first-grade class who I relentlessly called "seen" for our entire year because I was so set in my way that his parents misnamed him and he must be "seen." Thinking now, I never knew him. I have distinct memories of arguing with him in class and him taunting me when I was sent to the office for teaching the class how to stick their spoons to their noses during a manners class. Even seeing him that last day sticks with me, though the thought that I carried all this time was his extraordinary resemblance of a bobble head. While I once would say, "yeah, I knew Sean," I realize now that I never did. I never paid attention to him beyond his large head, which was probably actually normal, or his idiotic parents for pronouncing his name wrong. I can't remember his face, his likes, his dislikes, and I'm sure that my seven-year-old self did not care. I never really knew Sean, yet I remember our peaceful goodbye. I never saw him again, and think now that our goodbye must have been odd. How strange it is to spend a year with someone and never really know them.
High school is like this. I can't remember the name of my math teacher last year, the kid who sat beside me in science the year before. I brush elbows with someone and maybe lend them a pencil, but say goodbye at the end of the semester without a second thought. My friends find them on Instagram, they question, " do you know him?" I barely remember the face, but say, "yes," we sat together in English as if it holds meaning. How can one even say they knew them when the only words said that year were, "hello," "give me the answers," and "goodbye."
I think further to the people I have seen in stores, at school, outside, brushing by them in an instant hello and goodbye, possibly to see them again in a dream without ever knowing them. Saying "thank you" to a cashier, in a second's bond, to leave until the next time I need to go to Walmart for embroidery thread. Maybe this is what keeps us human, small bonds with someone to be broken with the next customer they serve.
I recently helped at a wedding with a planning company I work for on the side, and it was so oddly magical and intrusive to see two strangers in the happiest day of their lives. I saw them getting ready, an anxious audience, the way the string lights hung from beams, too much slack in the middle, and their drunk, sweaty bodies at the end of the night, smiling at me. The bride wished me a wonderful evening, though it was past eleven, and a great weekend, though it was still days away. I never even noticed her face. I saw the couple's intimacy as they danced and heard the mother of the bride remind her daughter to groom before the night- to shower and put on a pleasing perfume, then the lingerie the bridesmaids tucked in her bag. I heard and saw the most intimate of conversations, things their closest friends, coworkers may not have been privy to, and I never heard a name.
How strange it is to say goodbye to those you never knew. When any glance holds the power to alter two lives; any greeting and passing can change the course of time, it is strange to say goodbye. It is as if the end and a beginning collided in a meaningless, or perhaps meaningful, event and suddenly move on.
