Goodbye, Goodbye

Editor John Zheng reminds us in his introduction to a special issue on the theme goodbye (of Valley Voices: A Literary Review) that goodbye can mean many things –“departure, detachment, death, divorce, breakup, change for a new life, promising career, or bright future.” The word recalls for him finally being able to leave the village where he was sent for re-education during the Chinese Revolution. That gloomy, cold morning, he did not feel sad. Good riddance often pairs with Goodbye.

When I saw the call for submissions, I remembered that I had written a short prose piece based on a mysterious dream.  I had titled it “Goodbye, Goodbye.” The aura of the dream stayed with me for a long time, not just mysterious but also joyful.  Analyzing the dream, I realized it retold the death of my parents, the joy stemming not from their departure but from moments of conviviality in the dream that we experienced together before their departure.

In my dream and in my prose, I see them off in separate cars and return to the house through the utility room where I find a stranger reciting a passage from Proverbs,

 Listen to your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

The back cover of the special issue features a photograph of an abandoned truss bridge, partially hidden with weeds and brush.  One does not see, but can imagine, a lonely figure crossing the bridge, passing to the other side.

“Crossing the River” is the title of another featured prose piece. So many of the titles resonate: “Remainders”; “Mother’s Silk Dress”; “Heirlooms”; “Cutting Ties and Other Delicacies”; “Starting with a Line from Pasolini.”

Valley Voices: A Literary Review, V.23N1 spring 2023, Goodbye: A Special Issue ($20)

Mississippi Valley State University 7242, 14000 Highway 82 West, Itta Bena, Mississippi 38941