The Goodbye Show
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This message comes from Carvana. Sell your car the convenient way. Enter your license plate or VIN, answer a few questions, and get a real offer in seconds. Go to Carvana.com today. From NPR, this is Invisibilia. I'm Yo-Ai Shaw. Welcome to The Goodbye Show. And, you know, it's not like we want to say goodbye. NPR is stopping production of Invisibilia because of a massive budget shortfall and

But that's the thing about goodbyes. They are often forced upon you, sometimes rudely, and they're just hard. So our team is saying our goodbyes by doing what Invisibilia does best, thinking hard about them. And we reached out to you, our listeners, for help.

Hey there. Hello, Invisibilia. You asked about goodbyes and you did not disappoint. I am currently in the middle of saying goodbye. My goodbye is one that everybody saw coming. Trouble letting things go. I've never let goodbyes, but who does really, right?

We heard an objection to using the word goodbye in general. On Treaty 7 territory, where I reside, the Blackfoot people do not say goodbye, but instead, which means see you later, because goodbye is reserved for death. Speaking of death, there was a lot of death in our inbox. Dying family members, dying friends, dying pets. I'm in the process of saying goodbye to my 19-year-old cat, Flinfer.

Sorry. There was a goodbye to a bad job. Felt like a toxic relationship. To romantic relationships. We had some wins. We had some losses. The season is now over, and that's okay. Also a goodbye to a breast implant that went bad. I put the breast implant in a display case jar thing. And surprisingly for NPR, we only got one haiku. Bye for now, but not forever.

Wait. See. Listen. Then there's the listener who did a very invisibilia thing and said goodbye to her childhood home by recording her favorite sounds of it. Like the way the stairs would creak walking up them, the closing of her bedroom door, or something as small as a light switch. Likes to switch quick. Got a lot of gusto. The light, however, was always a bit delayed and then eventually stopped working entirely.

But the switch, it was a good switch. So today on the show, before NPR turns the lights off on us, we've got stories from the team and from you, our listeners, all meditations on navigating these tricky moments of departure. But first, a message from my co-host, Kia. Okay, let's get some of that sound of boxes.

Kia's packing up to move right now, but she wanted to say goodbye. This is just a little note to say thank you to everyone. I have a really deep gratitude to...

firstly, you, the listener, for tuning in, for writing us, for tweeting, for sending messages, just really engaging with the stuff that we make and letting us know that you like it and appreciate it. I'm so grateful for that. I'm grateful for all the many, many people who have worked and helped make this show possible.

including my co-host Yo-Ai Shaw, who helped usher in this new era of invisibilia. Thank you to the people who first made this show, Elise and Lulu and Hana. And yeah, I'm just over here packing boxes.

Endings can be hard, but they can also be opportunities. And so that's how I'm taking it. I'm taking this ending as an opportunity for a completely new and different beginning. And I'm looking forward to it. Keep in touch. Don't be a stranger. You can find me on the internets. Just search Kia Miyaka Natisse or Miyaka Natisse. You'll find me on some adventure near the water. Of course, Kia, you'll be by the water.

Thank you for helping me spearhead this new era of invisibilia. I am so excited to hear where this new adventure takes you. Okay, our first story comes to us from producer Andrew Mambo. Hey, Andrew. Welcome to The Goodbye Show.

Hey, Yo-A. I come bearing gifts. Oh, okay. I love a gift. I got fun stories. I went through the listener emails, and during this time, what I really needed was some levity, some laughs. So I kind of found myself diving into this particular subset of funny stories about goodbyes, which was the awkward goodbyes. There is something so delicious about the awkward goodbye, as long as you are not the person responsible for it. Yeah.

For everybody else involved, it's truly a gift. Oh, yeah. They're the best. That's why I want to share with you a few of my favorite awkward goodbyes from listeners. You ready? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. So we heard from one listener who the morning after a cute guy stayed over, she had to poop. Uh-huh. And, you know, she's trying to be polite, but also, you know, like...

trying to get the guy out the door. Makes sense. Yeah. And he's just kind of not getting the hint. He's lingering, taking his sweet time. In the end, she finally ends up just yelling at him to go. They're just like me in meetings that go long and I have to pee.

But like I can't yell because we are in a workplace. So I just start bouncing on my bouncing ball chair. I don't know if you've noticed. Yeah, I've noticed. You do that in media sometimes. Well, that's what's happening. I'm doing a silent version of a yell.

Via Bounce. Okay. Good to know. I'll make a note of that for this last week. All right. So another story we got was from a listener that took place in high school. And, you know, that's already an awkward time. And one day their dad tells them, hey, we're going to be moving away at the end of the school year. So this person is kind of devastated. They're leaving all their friends. They decide they're going to make the perfect goodbye. And they spend months making a stop motion animated film.

that they play on the last day of school. It's the perfect goodbye. All the friends are, like, emotional.

And then over the summer, the dad comes back and says, hey, actually, we're not moving. You're going back to school. And so they start the school year and all the friends and everybody in the school keeps being like, didn't you leave? Why are you still here? Oh, my God. That is a nightmare. This person was just trying to get an A and saying goodbye, like doing it in the most thoughtful, nice way ever. Right. They're probably still processing that one, huh? Yeah.

Yeah, super awkward. Okay, this last story is like next level. It's just straight slapstick awkward. This happened like 15 years ago. This listener, Megan Sheehan, she was living in San Francisco at the time. Her friend Michael came to town. They were close friends in high school and had actually hooked up a little and they kept in touch over the years. So when he comes to town, he invites her out to brunch with his current boyfriend and a group of friends.

She's like, yes, of course, I'd love to see you and meet your new boyfriend. But she's a little nervous because it's been a long time and she wants to make a good impression. So, you know, she takes a little extra time getting ready. I'm sure it took me, you know, an hour or two to get ready. But almost immediately things kind of start going left. Like back then, Megan was a punctual person. So.

So she gets there, she's trying to be early, but when she arrives, she sees that everybody's already seated. So she's like thrown off her game from the jump. Right, exactly. And then they order... Pancakes with bacon on the side, like, bring the syrup, like, give me as much sugar as you can, you know?

and the rest of the table's ordering salads and grain bowls. What kind of brunch is that? Why are you paying for brunch if you're only going to get salad? I'm with you. Yeah. I do think the salad people are coming for you, but...

So she tries to chat with her friend's boyfriend, but like they have nothing in common. So the conversation isn't going so great. It's just kind of flat. His body language was sort of like turned towards his friends. Definitely felt like he just wasn't really interested in chatting. Poor Megan. Yeah, I know. So the table gets cleared and brunch is coming to an end. She's like, you know, this has not been great. It's probably just going to leave. Yeah.

And she decides to stop by the bathroom. And as she's coming back from the bathroom, she sees Michael's boyfriend, you know, who she had been having difficulty connecting with. She decides to stop and say, hey, it was really nice meeting you. And then she doesn't really have anything else to say after that. Uh-huh. So she's kind of just standing there awkwardly. And so I sort of step closer to him and like,

Just sort of press my body up against his body, like giving a hug, but without my arms. So awkward.

Wait, wait, wait. So why didn't she use her arms? She cannot tell you why. She does not know. I just, I think I sort of froze. Like, I was thinking, well, he's taller than me, so he's going to kind of, you know, envelop me a little bit with his arms. But he wasn't going in for the hug. He was just...

standing there so he doesn't give her anything he doesn't help the situation at all so i'm giving him a full body press you know with the front of my body against the front of his body with no arms if he moved out of the way she would have fallen down like okay and then i kind of stepped back

And I realized what just happened. And he looked so confused. So eventually she's like, oh, God, what have I done? And decides to just leave. And not, like, say goodbye to anybody. She just runs out of the restaurant. Wow. She doesn't say goodbye to her friend Michael. They don't even talk about it the rest of his trip there.

And she continues her friendship. You know, they're still in contact. They've never talked about this happening. They've never talked about it happening. She has never talked about it. I was like, you're going to send them the story? She's like, yeah, I think so.

Like that's going to be her way of talking about it. So awkward. It would be so much less awkward if Megan had just talked to him about it years ago. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, like that's the beauty of awkwardness is that it becomes more awkward because you don't talk about it. Like it's just a gift and you need to just take it and embrace it and hold it tight.

Well, I feel for Megan and all of these listeners, because I am also awkward at goodbyes. You know, like, there's always a moment where somebody has to initiate the goodbye. Like, this is over now, and we are moving on with our lives. And...

I just don't like being that person. And so there's like that awkward dance of like, who's going to do the goodbye? Who's going to initiate? You know what I mean? You don't want to take responsibility for being the one to start the goodbye? Absolutely not. I just let the other person carry that burden. Uh, well. Okay, well. Is that, it feels like, is it happening now? Like, don't you feel it? Someone needs to initiate the goodbye. You have to do it. Um...

Okay. Goodbye. Okay. Bye, Yo-A. Bye. Bye. After the break, the dead grandma club. Hi, Ariana. Hi, Yo-A. This is the first time that we have tracked together. It is. And I wish it were under better circumstances. Me too. Me too. But yes, Ariana Garib Lee, you are a producer of Invisibilia. What do you got today?

So for me, the scary part about saying goodbye is not actually saying goodbye. It's the part that comes after. Like, am I going to remember what I'm supposed to about this experience or this relationship? Which is why I've always been the type of person to hold on to stuff. For example, a few years ago, my grandma's passed away and I'm obsessed with this amazing stuff they left me.

Like a rug from Iran that's in my living room, a portrait of my Chinese grandma that's on my wall. Maybe you've noticed this huge ring that I wear on my finger, which I always wear even though it gets in the way of cooking. I have noticed. But in this call-out, we got a story from a listener that actually made me question myself. Okay. Okay.

The listener, her name is Molly Devnani, and last year she lost her grandma, who she adored. I have this memory of her, like, throwing her walker forward and then walking to catch up with it. Just a busy, busy person. Oh my god, how does that even work? That's like from a Pixar movie. It's like, do you need the walker? I feel like you don't need the walker. Yeah.

So after she passed, Molly went to India where her grandma had lived. And while she was there, one of the things that was happening was that her family was cleaning up her grandma's house, deciding what to throw out, what to keep. And that's when they all came across a bag of nightgowns. They feel pressed and a little humid maybe. And they're kind of stuck in their folded positions.

One of them is yellow and has pink flowers on it. Another one is green, like a bright fluorescent type of green. Just her swag, you know.

So Molly's like absolutely entranced with these nightgowns, while her aunt and cousin are also standing there and just like way less impressed. And they were sort of joking around, smelling it, how it smells like coconut oil. They couldn't stand that she always had coconut oil smell on her. But I could kind of put together, oh my gosh, they're going to get rid of these. And I just had this sinking feeling of like, absolutely not. Like, no, I'm keeping these. These are mine.

In the moment, they were like, okay, Molly, you don't know what's going on, but just take them. So she packs a bag full to the brim with the nightgowns. Did you have to pay for an extra bag? Um, I did. Yeah, I sure did. She takes the long flight home, literally going back to America with your familial baggage. Yeah, exactly.

Quite literally, yes. She gets back to the U.S. and she has this plan. She wants to turn the nightgowns into a quilt. So she pops the nightgowns in the trunk of her car. She's going to take them to her mom's house for help sewing. But before she can get that far... I off the cuff just mentioned this to my cousin and she's like, well, you know, you know, you actually are supposed to like burn them or what we do is just give them away.

So Molly's Hindu and her family does this thing where they get rid of stuff after someone passes away because they want the person's soul to be able to leave their body and move on, which they can't do if you have all their stuff around. And I was kind of like, oh, shoot, you know, I'm sorry I didn't know that. Why didn't you tell me before I packed the bag of nighties, you know, home with me?

But, you know, considering the stakes, Molly's cousin is pretty chill about it. She's like, but it's okay. I mean, it's whatever you want. So it's more about what you believe in. So now it's kind of like, what do I believe in?

Oof. That is, it would almost be easier if the cousin was just like, you need to burn them or it's totally fine. I know. And that's why for weeks, Molly is like, what do I do? Do I make the quilt? Oh my gosh, it would be beautiful. It would look so good on my couch.

Or do I take the nighties out of my car and donate them? Like, what if her soul is still in there? What if what they said is true and, like, she's just in the trunk? Like, should I move her up to the passenger seat? So what did Molly do? Well, when I called Molly, she still hadn't decided. And we talked about it a lot. And eventually, she said this thing about keeping the nighties that I just couldn't get out of my head. I can keep her...

handwritten notes around I can keep her nightgowns around but that's ultimately to try to sort of stage the scene as though she's here right yeah I think we've arrived at our answer what's the answer I mean hearing myself talk about those two paths I think I think it makes sense to to let the 90s soar on to their next home you know

Because I guess ultimately it's letting go, but it's also reality. And the reality is that she doesn't need the things. The love stays. You know, if I want to remember her, that's within myself and I don't really need a physical crutch for that. I think that's beautiful.

Like, you're not going to use a crutch to remember. You're just going to trust that you will. Yeah. So, Ariana. Yes? Does that mean that you will take off the huge ring that you wear all the time, even though it gets in the way? No. You can't make me. No.

I see. So you have not absorbed the lesson of your own story that you reported. Okay, well, I will share one thing, which is that a few years ago, I was making, of all things, a pinata for my friend's birthday. And yeah, I like took the ring off to do it. I put it on the ground and I stepped on it.

And it like mushed down into this like unwearable shape. And I like picked it up and I was horrified. And my friend generously like went to work on it. And she made it wearable again. And I was super, super grateful. But I guess like after like talking to Molly, the thing I realized was that I think if that happened again, I'd be a little less freaked out.

Thanks, Ariana. Of course. Talk to you soon. Bye. Goodbye. All right. Our next story is about a kind of goodbye we got a lot of messages about. The goodbye you regret. And it comes from a listener who actually hasn't listened to that many episodes. It's about...

Three to four. Sorry. Because I find that it's really involved. You cannot do things, you know, with the background. Okay, listen to invisibilia. You have to really concentrate. This is my mom, the queen who kills with candor.

She's also a hot girl who always has the latest on what's new in skincare. Wow, you look so moisturized. Or is that sweat? I wanted to talk to my mom because she's had a lot of practice saying goodbye, specifically to her mom, my grandma, Wai Poa.

My mom grew up an only child in Taiwan, and my grandpa died early on. So from a young age, it was just her and Waipua, the two of them, which they took advantage of with their own special rituals.

Like, when my mom was a kid, Wipe would like to dress her up like a doll, buy fabric in the morning, and sit at the sewing machine for hours to make my mom a dress by the afternoon. We don't really have a routine, you know, like, oh, daddy's coming home, so we need to make dinner for everyone. So she would just concentrate on making it to finishing from start to finish. Well, her routine would be you. Yeah, that's right.

But then, when my mom was 22, she broke up this duo. She flew to the U.S. to go to grad school and live with my dad, who she'd been doing long distance with. My mom says, back then, if you were lucky enough to skip town for the U.S., leaving wasn't a question mark. Everyone was on board at the time. But still, I'd always wondered what had gone down in that goodbye. We never talked about the actual moment of it. That, for me, is really...

In the weeks leading up to the flight, my mom says everything was a scramble. Waipua was in supreme Waipua mode, taking my mom to get her hair curled to look like a movie star, going to acupuncture to jab needles in my mom's face for a sinus problem.

There was no time to talk or think much about the separation, how she'd be leaving Waipua to live all by herself, not even the day of the flight. Yeah, then we were, you know, in the taxi and, you know, kind of tense moment because I, you know, we were both silent. A lot of things are, you know, going through our minds. Were you thinking about Waipua at all?

As a young people at that time, I'm not as thoughtful as I would now. So I was more thinking of my own problem. But of course, thinking, oh, she's living, you know, by herself.

When they got to the airport, my mom was hoping for another shot at goodbye. But other family had now arrived. My mom felt like she had to make small talk. And before she realized, it was time to line up at the gate. How did you actually end up literally saying goodbye? Definitely hug and shed some tears, of course. Cannot really go deeper. In other words, she felt like she blew it.

Over the next four decades, my mom had to leave and say goodbye to Waipo probably 25 times on visits back to Taiwan or when Waipo visited us in Houston. Growing up, I'm sure I witnessed many of these goodbyes, but they don't stick out in my mind. But now as an adult, I feel for her, having to do this really hard thing over and over again, like she's stuck in some kind of goodbye Groundhog Day. ♪

Did you ever figure out a way to make it less painful? I was just basically using avoidance strategies. Not to think about it. Not to think about it. Right. The more you dwell on it, the more you become more depressed. Good old-fashioned avoidance. Right. Good old-fashioned. Then the final goodbye. The big one.

In 2020, Waipo lost her appetite and her blood pressure was off. Her nurse at the nursing home took her to the hospital. What was supposed to be a day of observation turned into days, then a week, then an oxygen tank. My mom got on the first flight she could, but she had to quarantine for two weeks when she landed. She was just a few days from making it to the hospital when the time came.

So they did a video call. When she was in her oxygen tank, she was looking at me so I could have an eye contact with her. Of course, the only thing I think is she must feel lonely. If I'm there, it definitely will help her. My mom had so much practice with goodbyes. I thought she'd have something to tell me about how to do them well. Some useful advice. But she didn't really have any.

She told me that saying goodbye always hurt, and she never learned how to do it right with Waipoa. Not during those 45 years, and not that last time either. If you could do it over, and you could have made it by her side, what would you have said to her or done? I would kiss her, of course, and pat her on her head like a baby, yeah.

But then I had this memory with Waipua that I thought might help my mom feel better about these botched goodbyes. So, Mom, there's this moment I witnessed a while ago that I never talked to you about. Decades ago, when my mom and dad were long distance, my mom made a cassette tape of herself singing for my dad, and she made an extra copy for Waipua.

And a few years ago, when our family was in Taipei visiting, my grandma got out the tape and played it for me. My mom is singing "You and Me," a song originally composed around the 13th century in China. And as we were sitting there listening to this tape,

I noticed why Bo's lips were moving to all the words. Like, she'd listened to this song over and over again. I memorized every lyric. When I told my mom about this moment, it was like she'd been flattened by an emotional dump truck. Wow.

So she must be listening a lot. Wow. Did you know that she listened to those songs? I didn't know. I didn't know. How does that make you feel? Yeah, I mean, of course. By listening to my voice, my singing, she must feel closer to me. Oh, wow.

You know, when we talk about goodbyes, I feel like people tend to focus on what happens during the literal parting of ways. You know, like that airport scene. Right. The hug, the kiss, the wave. Bye. This moment with Waipua, it made me realize that that's just one goodbye point in the long arc of goodbyes.

Right. And that there are all these other goodbyes that are largely invisible to the other person. Like this goodbye that Waipua was doing with you. Right. Listening to your songs and holding you close all these years. Right. I think that also counts. There's one other thing my mom would have done if she'd gotten to say goodbye in person. She said she'd play YouTube.

YouTube of Waipua's favorite song, Small Town Story, by this famous Taiwanese singer, Teresa Tang. But surely my mom, who my dad calls Xiao Niao, little bird, can do better than YouTube. So I asked her to do her own invisible, unofficial goodbye. Sing another song for Waipua. Thank you for dressing up for the occasion. So beautiful. You're always too nice. Okay. Okay.

That's it. After the break...

Lead reporter and producer Abby Wendell brings some Tupperware to the goodbye party.

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All right. We have reached our final goodbye of the episode. Oh my God, you sound like we're at our own funeral. It kind of is a funeral for our show. Yeah. Hello, Abby Wendell. Hello, Yo-Ai Shaw. So like, as you know, I'm from the Midwest. And we have a bit of a reputation about our goodbyes.

Are you familiar? Okay, I'm not actually familiar. I did see an email from a listener who said something about Midwestern goodbyes being famous for being really long and drawn out and like you can't really get out of them. Yes. Is that right? That is absolutely correct. It is...

It's prolonged. It likes to linger. It's broken down into steps sometimes. There's a sort of like whelp and a knee slap and kind of like maybe a stretch to indicate that you might be getting up off the couch. Oh, that's the signal to initiate. Yeah. Okay. But then like the goodbye can last anywhere from 30 minutes to—

Like hours. No. There's going to be some sort of obligatory taking of leftovers. I saw one person call this ensnarement cake, which I thought was hilarious. Ensnarement cake. Yeah. I love that. Also, there's like a stage where you're at the foyer making plans for the future. The internet, not surprisingly, is filled with scorn for the Midwestern goodbye. Yeah.

I've seen jokes about, like, if you go to dinner together, you can expect for the goodbyes that take place in the parking lot to last as long, if not longer, than the actual dinner.

Oh, my God. That sounds like torture to me. And also, I don't know if you're aware of this, Abby Wendell, but there's a joke about you on our team. Oh, no. Just about how it is impossible to get out of meetings with you. Oh, God.

So as a Midwesterner, I've engaged with this goodbye, obviously. You've been victim to it, apparently. Yeah. You know, kind of by default until this moment, right? Like this moment made me question it. Like, does it actually have a value? Is there anything redeeming about it? And is it the right kind of goodbye for this particular moment? Yeah.

So I called up the guy that I like to think about these kinds of questions with.

Divied, of course. I'm kind of like a story psychotherapist, which feels more like what I feel like I do because I'm not doing therapy for people, right? It's like much more about like somebody needs to put their story on the couch and we like listen. Typically not, but yeah. It's not that it's never happened. I feel like that's a great descriptor, like a story psychotherapist with like a splash of

Yes, yes. There's definitely a certain amount of rabbinic knowledge that's required for this job. So for our listeners, this is David Goodhertz. He helps us do like intellectual reporting and research for our stories. He does so much. Yeah. And he felt like doubly qualified to talk about this particular question because he recently moved to the Midwest and

Ohio, actually. He's like an hour and a half north of me. And he reports already experiencing some Midwestern goodbye energy. I found a lime in my car today. That was not one that I bought. That was like someone was like, I had mentioned something that someone was like, oh, you'll need limes for that, you know? And then it just sits in my car for the next month. It's an ensnarement lime. Yeah. Yeah.

So I asked David to do a little bit of research and thinking about the Midwestern goodbye. So I'm like mulling it over. And here's what he had to say. I think people who come from the outside and look at it, I think one of the reasons people hate it is because it looks so denialist. Denialist. You know, it's just like, just say goodbye and be done with it. You know, but I think that it's a very particular way. It's all about leftovers. It really is all about leftovers. It's you're gathering up the leftovers of the night and

From each conversation, from each person, something you haven't yet eaten, you know, from each person there in order to say like, well, but I'm still carrying these leftovers home with me. So I haven't fully disappeared. Some bit of this is still with me. I'm thinking about my mom and all the people out there who have these goodbyes in their life that they regret not doing.

you know, things they wish they had done or said in a goodbye. And it feels like the Midwestern goodbye, this kind of like extra space and room built into apparently every farewell. I mean, it's just like a catch-all to prevent against that feeling. So I talked with one listener and she said that the Midwestern goodbye is a goodbye that's open to opportunity. Yeah.

I think that that is the value of the Midwestern goodbye. It's not maybe the only goodbye that you should have in your arsenal, but like it is a goodbye that has a time and a place for moments where there's a lot of uncertainty, where maybe like you don't want to go and maybe you don't actually have to go. Like anything could happen in that lingering moment.

Are you suggesting that we camp out at NPR headquarters and just get a bunch of Tupperware? We need to start baking casseroles now. Okay, that's the plan. Okay, got it.

But as you know, that's actually not the situation we're in. Yeah. And at some point while I was talking with David, he told me about this very different kind of goodbye experience.

That might be more fitting. Just to get into my rabbi mode for a second. This is like so Jewish. I can't even believe that this exists actually. But there's like a way to say goodbye to a book that you really love reading. That you've gotten a lot of lessons from. Like a tractate of the Talmud. It's called...

the hadran which means um the we will return which is a prayer that you say you know the thought here is you're reading a book is always a way of engaging with the community in in this tradition that the senses community is built out of that shared argumentation around a set of ideas and and um

uh, that really matter to, to you or to the other people who would come with you to read this tractate. Um, and I mean, and that was like one of the things that when I got to invisibility, it was one of the first things that I was like, Oh, that's what's happening here. We're like putting a tractate on the table and we're all Talmudically dissecting it until there's nothing left to say about it. And then we're going to come back and do it tomorrow, you know? Um, and so, and so there's this prayer that you say, um,

We will return to you and you will return to us. Our mind is on you and your mind is on us. We will not forget you and you will not forget us. Not in this world and not in the world to come. And the idea is you're supposed to say it aloud, you know, at the end of a study session. And it's also, you're also supposed to leave a little bit unread, right?

so that you can come back to it and it can come back to you. But to me, there's something about that formula that it's saying, like, I won't forget you, right? I'm going to come back to you and you won't forget me, but also, like, I'm really leaving. So when David and I began, like, thinking together about

Talmudically dissecting this goodbye, which I've been calling the Talmudic goodbye. It really helped me realize that it has something that the Midwestern goodbye, for all its beautiful virtues, just doesn't actually have. There isn't a moment where you really say, you know what? Like,

we gotta let it burn. We gotta let it burn. And we have to, and we really have to, to, to not, not end the denial necessarily, but like take a moment to, uh,

mark something that is this burning, that is this kind of like cleansing. That to me is something that feels it's missing something of that element. Yeah. Like to me, I can only experience the finality as like a who knows. Right. Right. But not as a shared finality. A who knows is a denial of, no, we know. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're, things are ending and we're saying goodbye now.

Oh, when you said that, suddenly I just felt very, very sad. Yeah. You're going to make me cry. I know. Yeah, it's really sad. It's really sad. Yeah. I mean, there is something kind of like, there's like a clinger on energy to the Midwestern goodbye that I find very sweet. Yeah.

And like not pathetic, but like has shades of in denial. Yeah. I'm not letting you go. Right. We'll meet again. Yeah. And sometimes what you need for a goodbye is just, you know, a dramatic ritual, just sort of like ripping the bit, like something cathartic rather than the don't go, don't go ritual.

Which, if you'll recall, Invisibilia used to do. I knew you were going to go here. Yeah, that is true. How could I forget? Well, how could I not go here? So yeah, at the end of every season, we would gather together and have what we called a coven party. Yeah, because we like would always burn something. Sticky notes of to-do lists.

interview transcripts. There was a certain amount of debauchery. I mean... Oh, yeah. All of us, like, lounged in our chairs, cigarettes out, drinks, double fisting. Remember when we had a competition, the drinks of many colors? Yes, we had a... What do you think? Should we plan a coven party? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Where should it be? I feel like I'm in the middle. So, and I have a solo stove. Like Thai food menu? Yeah, Thai food. There's a good Thai place around us. We need to decide on what the ritual of like what we're burning. Yes. I think something Zoom related would be fun. Yo-Wei, you'll notice I've now engaged us in a proper Midwestern goodbye because we are making plans for the future. Yeah.

Oh, I've been ensnared. Oh, I'm a sitting duck for the Midwestern. I mean, listen, you've been ensnaring me this seven years with all the Midwestern goodbyes during meetings. So of course I would be ensnared once again.

That's it for The Goodbye Show. Thank you to everyone who wrote in with your goodbye stories and messages of support, including Natasha Allen, Ryan Kalan, Lala Drona, Jessica Van Dyne, Marina Fu, Claire Jones, Alison Laughlin, Marissa Mann, Eric Ong, Elisa Coles-Sikar, Lauren Torres, Jeffrey Meyer, Isaiah Prasad, Christian Cobian, and Kelsey Simpkins.

Loved getting to go through all your emails and they helped us in this moment. A tear or two might have been shed. Special thanks to Alexandra Dixon, to Wyndham Juno for reflecting on the Midwestern goodbye with Abby, and to Daisy Wu for helping ID a song for my mom's cassette tape,

This episode was produced by the three A's, Abby Wendell, Andrew Mambo, Ariana Garably, and me, Yo-Wei Shaw. It was edited by Liza Yeager. Invisibilia is also produced by supervising editor Nina Potok, supervising producer Liana Simstrom, executive producer Irene Noguchi, and my co-host Kia Myakonitis.

This episode was mastered by Josh Newell. Our technical director is Andy Huther. Legal and standard support from Micah Ratner and Tony Cabin. And our senior vice president of programming is Anya Grundman. Theme music by Infinity Knives. Additional music in this episode provided by Elizabeth DeLise, Connor Lafitte, and Running Dog Music. All right. We have come to the moment to actually say goodbye and not just keep running down the driveway waving at you.

Goodbye and thank you to everyone across NPR who helped us make Invisibilia and share it with the world. Visuals, marketing, rad, engineering, IT, social, audience engagement, legal, and so many more teams. And of course, thank you and all the best to everyone

all the flowers to Elise Spiegel, Lulu Miller, and Anne Gudenkopf for creating this weird, beautiful show, and to former host Hannah Rosen, and to all the invisibilians past and present who made it go with all the flowers.

All your contributions.

James Kim. Jeff Rogers. Joe Nixon. Julie Carley. Justine Yan. Karen Duffin. Kat Chow. Kiyomiaka Natisse. Jake Arlo. Lauren Beard. Lee Hale. Lina Sonskiri. Liana Simstrom. Liza Yeager. Lulu Miller. Luis Regis.

Te amo, Invisibilia. Phoebe Wang.

And me, Yo-Wei Shaw.

And last, but certainly not least, thank you to every single one of you for listening over the years, contributing your stories, questions, corrections, and ideas, for badgering your friends and family to listen to our episodes, for just hanging with us. If you want to keep hanging, you can always revisit the archive on NPR's website and wherever you get your podcasts.

We're not sure what happens next for this feed, but you should stay subscribed for now. Who knows? Maybe magic will strike. And some of our team is staying on at NPR to keep telling beautiful audio stories, and we'll share them with you.

As for me, I just started a newsletter and you can find me on Twitter, Instagram, all the things. Just search Yo-Wei Shaw. You will find me. We will put everybody's info on our website so you can follow us to see what we make next. Okay, we are actually at the end now. See you soon somewhere out there.

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