Good-byes are what my life has been. I understand now why I never really had a relationship with my parents. They were always telling me and my siblings good-bye (God be with ye). Every time they commended us to God in their prayers they were saying good-bye. Every time they entrusted us to God, every time they committed us to God’s care they were saying good-bye. That’s what it means to raise your children to God. You entrust them to God. By entrusting them to God you tell them good-bye. (Commend: late 14c., from Latin commendare "to entrust to," from com- intens. prefix + mandare "to commit to one's charge". Adieu: late 14c., from Old French adieu, from phrase a dieu (vous) commant "I commend (you) to God," from a "to" (from Latin ad) + dieu "God," from Latin. deum, acc. of deus "god," from PIE *deiwos -- originally said to the party left; farewell was to the party setting forth.)
Good-byes are always about sacrifice. They are always about giving up something for the sake of another (Sacred: From Old French sacrer (12c.), from Latin sacrare "to make sacred, consecrate," from sacer (gen. sacri) "sacred, dedicated, holy, accursed," from Old Latin saceres, which Tucker connects to base *saq- "bind, restrict, enclose, protect," explaining that "words for both 'oath' & 'curse' are regularly words of 'binding.'") We were cursed. We were bound, restricted, enclosed, and preserved for a higher power. We were presented, placed before, shown, exhibited for God and to God. We were appointed to God’s ministry. Martyrdom had befallen us because we were to be commended to God by way of the sacred.
Good-byes are always about going away. In commending us to God we also became a witness of this transaction. We became the evidence of the faith in God. We became re-presentatives, gifts to God. We were to be used as tools for God’s work. We were the place where God’s scripture became life. Our bodies were the site for God’s scripture. We were com-mitted to script (Script: "a writing, book, law, line, mark, to scratch an outline, sketch. From base *sker- "cut, incise" cf. O.E. sceran "cut off, shear, hack or O.N. skript "penance". Commit: late 14c., from L. committere "to bring together," from com- "together" + mittere "to put, send."). We became the platform for the outline, the sketch which would then be cut, sheared, and than put together. Having been manipulated and reconstructed we were now different. We were estranged, a thing devoted. We belonged to God now, we were aliens. We were prepared by special process to answer to that which was invoked, meaning we had to always be on the move. We became the bodies sent to a foreign land on political business, the messengers. Wherever God was invoked we had to follow. We were the witnesses limited to God’s cause.
