The Last Goodbye
Although this poem is not based on anything specifically, yet, I was inspired to write this after watching the movies “The English Patient” and “Legends of the Fall”. Both of these movies are some of my favorites but I want to simply point out that there are some people in our lives that are simply irreplaceable and when they are gone, in a strange way, time stands still. People can not be replaced and memories are sadly the only things we have left to hold onto in honoring that person and for clarification, at the end of this poem I intend to point out that she joins him and they reunite in that special place across that far distant shore, she is saying Goodbye only to his memory in this life in order to rejoin in being with him in the next which is my intended message here.
“The Last Goodbye”
Him:
Stay alive!
I will defeat them and come back to you
I’ll be back…I’ll be back
Wait for me!
We are together as one, you and I,
yet honor and duty compel me…even as I cry
Her:
Just bring yourself back
I don’t want any glorious return…just return
Return and come back to me
Just return, you complete me
Kisses we’ve tasted, bodies we swam up and entered
Sunrises and sunsets we’ve basked in
I will never forget your face, your smile
Your strength supplants me in your love
Comeback…please!
Just comeback!
Time passes and the memory fades;
Her;
Where are you?
Where are you now?
Are you still there across that far distant shore?
Are you still waiting for me, hoping what’s instore?
Did you make it?
Did you transcend across time to our special place?
Why won’t you write? I miss your warm embrace
My heart aches to mourn or even hope
as I hold onto your last letter & envelope
but then hope seems no more
as even now, I write this knowing, knowing what’s really instore
Knowing that you will never read it
Knowing that you won’t need it
I write this to myself…no need to date it
If only you could, you would feel this inside of me
know that it is my heart, know that it is broken,
My love had protected you from death’s door,
only for you to go meet it, yet once more
I am old now and my vision fades,
I waited for you…I waited for decades
I can feel my life slipping free,
slipping out from under me
I have nothing left to hold onto,
nothing left to go back to
Goodbye my love
Goodbye as I lay here to die
Goodbye my love, as I lay here and cry
Goodbye!
Written by Jeff Andreis July 25, 2022
If you enjoyed reading “The Last Goodbye”, and would like to read more from the author, check out his author page here.
You can follow Jeff Andreis on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-andreis-mba-8a36a14a
• Business Administration & Leadership
• Finance and Accounting
• Healthcare Management
• Education Management
• Sales & Customer Relations
• Start Ups & Raising Private Equity
• Freelance Writing including Business Plans
• Marketing & Advertising
- Parallel Lines - February 3, 2023
- The Last Goodbye - January 3, 2023
- Finding Closure and Change - December 14, 2022
Oh my gosh, Jeff. I felt the beauty of love, the hope of uniting again, the lonely waiting, the pain of loss, the acceptance of dying, then the joy of reuniting. I have been there and will be there one day to reunite with my beloved. This piece is so endearing and beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Phyllis, I’m glad it moved you and touched your heart. I just didn’t have it in me to leave the reader with such a loss and I am a strong believer in happy or happier endings which is why I wrote that message above the poem and intended meaning as well as clarification about the end to give this to the reader that there is always hope, especially in the afterlife. After all, my poem, my story and message, lol, and Phyllis, you will see your beloved again “but not yet…not yet”, as the famous quote from the movie “Gladiator” says it best.
Well crafted verse Jeff thank you for sharing. Jamie
Thank you Jamie. Feedback like this means so much to me as I still feel I don’t know what I’m doing as a writer and still discovering so much. This type of poem in a two person narrative is my first ever…something just come over me to write it and I let my inner feelings guide me. That’s really the best way I can describe it.