Submitted to: Contest #306

The Long Goodbye (and the Longer Hello)

Written in response to: "Tell a story using a graduation, acceptance, or farewell speech."

Indigenous Inspirational Contemporary

Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, and family. Kartanya! Remember that name. It means 'firstborn daughter' in my grandmother's tongue. Like most firstborn daughters, I am akin to a storm; I am soft, persistent, life-giving and sometimes, a deluge that reshapes the land. I think it's fitting for the journey I'm finally wrapping up. One hundred years. It was a century measured not just in sunrises but in scars, triumphs, quiet despair, and stubborn, defiant sparks of joy. Today, I don't say goodbye with a whimper but with the echo of a fight well-fought, a love fiercely held, and a heart still, astonishingly, capable of hope. Consider this my final report card. My graduation from the flesh. My application is for what comes next.

My darlings, my mob, my chosen family, the young warriors with fire in your eyes gather close. Listen to the crackle in this old voice. It holds the dust of Wirangu Country, the sun of Narungga Country, the smog of cities that never truly welcomed me, the salt of countless tears shed in solitude and solidarity. I was born under a southern sky vast enough to swallow your fears whole, yet the world they built for me felt suffocatingly small. The 70s? A time of flares and flared tempers. My anger then was a raw, red thing. Anger at the stolen land beneath my feet, the stolen language whispered only in secret. The stolen children – cousins, friends – ripped from arms like mine.

Anger at the assumption that my skin colour dictated my intellect, my potential, my very humanity. It burned that anger. A cleansing fire, sometimes. Other times, it threatened to consume me from the inside out. I learned resilience wasn't just enduring the blow but learning to weave the pain into something stronger like spinifex grass-binding sand dunes. Education became my shield, my spear. I grabbed it with both hands, blistered palms and all. Degrees didn't erase the slurs hissed on buses or the condescension in boardrooms, but they gave me the words to dissect the poison, to name the beast. I learned resilience is often just stubbornness dressed in its Sunday best. You, my chosen family, have been my rock, inspiration, and reason to keep fighting. Your love and support have been my greatest strength, and I am forever grateful for every one of you.

The 80s roared in, all shoulder pads and synthetic optimism. I navigated it like a ghost in my own Country. The sexism was a different flavour but just as bitter. The 'token woman', the 'articulate Aboriginal' – labels meant to box me in, diminish the complex, raging, striving human beneath. Cynicism took root then, a tough little weed pushing through cracks in the pavement. I saw governments change, promises made like confetti, only to dissolve in the first rain. Reconciliation became a buzzword, a photo op, while communities still withered from neglect. My cynicism wasn't born of apathy, mind you. It was armour. The constant low-grade betrayal stings a little less if you expect the worst. Or so I told myself.

The 90s bled into the 2000s. The digital age dawned, connecting us in ways unimaginable, yet the ancient wounds festered. And then… 2025. The year the world's conscience seemed to haemorrhage onto our screens. Palestine. We'd seen suffering before, God knows. My people carried generations of it. But the scale, the sheer, systematic brutality unfolding in real-time, shattered something. The carefully constructed walls around my cynicism crumbled, not to reveal naivety but a flood of compassion so profound it was agony. I saw grandparents like me, clutching grandchildren amidst the rubble. I saw resilience that mirrored ours, a refusal to be extinguished. I saw humanity at its most viciously inhumane and yet flickering amidst the ruins, at its most breathtakingly courageous. That compassion wasn't passive pity but a fierce, aching kinship. It reignited my anger, but it was colder, sharper and focused this time. It was anger for them, us, all the bruised and broken under the boot of empire and ideology. It forced me to look beyond my struggles to see the interconnected tapestry of oppression. My fight wasn't just for here anymore.

Love. Ah, love! It came late, my dears. Buried under layers of expectation – societal, familial, my confused longings. I'd chased the fairy tale – the strong, silent man, the picket fence. It never fit. Like wearing shoes two sizes too small. In my late forties, a flicker. A warmth in a colleague's smile, a shared understanding deeper than words with a woman who fought similar battles. It took years, a slow dawning, a terrifying unravelling of everything I thought I knew about myself. To realise, at fifty, that the love I craved, the deep, anchoring, passionate love, came in the form of Elara. Her hands were steady and sure. Her laugh was a balm on my darkest days—the quiet solidarity of shared existence against a world that often didn't understand or accept us. Discovering I was a lesbian wasn't just about desire; it was about finally coming home to myself. It was the most profound act of self-love and acceptance after decades of feeling like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong picture. Elara was my harbour in the storm. We didn't get the decades I'd dreamed of; cancer is a thief with no respect for late-blooming joy. But the years we had? They were drenched in a love that felt like a revolution, a quiet, personal defiance against a lifetime of being told who I should be, who I should love. Losing her carved a canyon in my soul, but the love? The love remains—an enduring ember.

Humanity. That's the thread. Through all the anger, the resilience, the cynical barbs, the bursts of optimism, the crushing grief, the unexpected joy. The messy, infuriating, glorious, heart-breaking spectacle of being human. I've seen us at our absolute worst: genocidal, greedy, willfully blind. I've witnessed the casual cruelty, the systemic indifference that allows children to starve and elders to freeze. The cynic in me, the battle-scarred veteran, whispers that this is our nature. But the optimist, forged in fire and tempered by Elara's love and the courage of strangers facing bulldozers and bombs, she stubbornly refuses to die. I've seen neighbours share their last loaf. I've seen strangers dive into floodwaters for a child, not their own. I've seen young people like you gathered here rise with a moral clarity that cuts through the fog of old men's wars and corporate lies. I've seen Country heal when given the chance; it is a testament to resilience far older than mine. Hope isn't a fluffy blanket; it's a calloused hand gripping a shovel, rebuilding after the storm. It's the seed pushing through concrete. It's you. Looking into your faces and seeing the fire, intelligence, and care is where my hope lives now, not in some distant utopia but in the fierce, imperfect, ongoing struggle waged by generations like yours.

At this age, reflection isn't just looking back; it's sifting through the ashes and the blooms, trying to find the meaning. Did I put up a good fight? Oh, I fought. With words, with degrees, with protests in the streets and quiet defiance in classrooms and corridors of power. I fought for my place, my people, justice for Palestine, and the right to love openly. I fought the demons within – the PTSD that whispered I was worthless, the trauma that tried to steal my voice. Some battles I won. Many I lost or merely held the line. But I never laid down my arms. I never surrendered my spirit entirely to the darkness. The fight itself – the refusal to be crushed, the insistence on speaking the truth, the act of loving fiercely against the odds; that was the victory. Not some tidy ending, but the messy, glorious persistence of it all.

So, this is it. The final curtain call for Kartanya. I leave you with the dust of a century on my boots and starlight in my old bones. I leave you the anger – use it to fuel the fire for justice, but don't let it burn you alive. I leave you the resilience – bend but know your core is unbreakable. I leave you the compassion – let it be your compass, bridge, and weapon against indifference. I leave you the love – find it, cherish it in all its unexpected forms; it is the ultimate rebellion. I leave you my cynicism – a tool for discernment, not a prison. I leave you my optimism – that stubborn, ridiculous belief that a better world is not only possible but is being built, brick by painful brick, by hands like yours. And I leave you my hope – fragile, defiant, as necessary as breath.

You stand on the shoulders of giants – ancestors, fighters, survivors, lovers. Honour them by reaching higher. Tend to this fragile, furious, beautiful planet. Fight for each other. Love without fear. Never forget what true humanity looks like – it's in the shared meal, the helping hand, the raised voice against tyranny, the quiet dignity of endurance.

My body is tired—so very tired—but my spirit? My spirit feels strangely light, like shedding a heavy coat after a long winter. It's time. Don't weep for me too long. Celebrate the rain that nourished, the flood that reshaped, the persistent drip that wore down the stone. Celebrate the fight.

Go well, my darlings. Carry the fire.

Kartanya closes her eyes, a small, peaceful smile on her lips. The gathered family and friends, tears streaming but faces resolute, lean in closer, holding hands. The recording device blinks off. Silence settles thick with love and loss.

The light changes. Not electric, not sunlight. A soft, pervasive luminescence. Kartanya opens her eyes. She's not in her living room anymore. She stands on nothing and everything before her, vast gates of pearlescent light shimmer. A figure stands beside them, radiating not judgment but a profound, weary kindness.

Saint Peter (or Whoever's On Gate Duty These Days), "Kartanya. Meaning 'firstborn daughter'. We've been expecting you. Quite the dossier. A century of intensity. Anger, resilience, compassion, love witnessed and lost, cynicism battling optimism, humanity in all its messy glory. You fought. Hard. Often against crushing tides. Did you put up a good fight?" He consults not a book but a shimmering constellation of moments: her clutching a degree, holding Elara's hand at a protest, weeping before a news screen in 2025, laughing with children, staring defiantly into a bureaucrat's eyes. "The record shows yes! It was a perfect fight, indeed. Not flawless. Scarred. But fierce, compassionate, and ultimately hopeful. You learned. You loved. You left the soil richer for your presence, even when it felt like you were sowing in concrete."

Kartanya (straightening her spine, the familiar fire flickering): "Good. Now, about that 'eternal life' business… is there a complaints department up here? Because frankly, the management down below left a lot to be desired. And I've got some suggestions. Starting with Palestine. And while we're at it, the treatment of my mob and the whales and the climate refugees…"

A slow, celestial smile spreads across the Gatekeeper's face, touched with amusement and profound respect.

Saint Peter exhaled his angelic breath, "Oh, Kartanya. Welcome. We've saved you a seat on the Committee for Righteous Indignation and Strategic Hope. Your fight? It seems it's just transitioning venues. The agenda is extensive. Shall we?"

Kartanya grins, a spark of old defiance mixed with newfound, eternal curiosity. She takes a step forward, not towards rest but towards the next front line. Her final speech wasn't just a farewell; it was her opening statement for the infinite. The fight, the love, the relentless, hopeful struggle for a better expression of existence—it seems—continues. The storm, it seems, rages everywhere.

© Kartanya Martinez 2025

Posted Jun 09, 2025
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5 likes 3 comments

Kendall Defoe
03:42 Jun 20, 2025

You have some real and vivid here. Well done!

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Sofia Puggioni
09:39 Jun 15, 2025

Wow. This was a really good story. But what does 'good' mean? All and nothing.
In this case, 'good' means based on a great idea, but also touching. It made me think, and honestly I think that if a story is well-written, this is exactly how it should be. Good job, really. :)

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02:09 Jun 16, 2025

What an excellent way to wake up, to a review like this! Thank you so, so much. You've absolutely made my day, not just by calling the story "good," but by taking the time to dig into what that meant for you personally. Your breakdown – that it was based on a great idea, emotionally touching, and made you think – honestly, feels like the holy grail of feedback for any writer. That's precisely the kind of connection and reaction I hope for when putting a story out into the world. Knowing it resonated on those levels means more than just a simple "good job" (though thank you for that too!).

The fact that you reflected on what "good" even means and then landed on those specific qualities tells me you're exactly the kind of thoughtful, engaged reader authors dream of. Thank you for reading deeply and sharing your thoughts generously. It means the world and fuels the drive to keep writing.

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