Christy NaMee Eriksen‘s new video for her poem “How To Say Goodbye” follows a pair of friends over a lifetime. The film is dedicated to Amy Henderson, her friend who passed away from cancer earlier this year. The video arrives on Henderson’s birthday. She would have been 33 today.
Recorded in the days following Henderson’s death, Eriksen partnered with guitarist Avery Stewart to create the soundtrack. Stewart’s warm electric guitar accompanies Eriksen’s drawn out farewell. Both artists experienced loss in 2017.
“In my family, when we say goodbye on an ordinary day it’s a very long process, almost comically long sometimes,” Eriksen wrote in an email. “After my friend died I felt so angry and sad at having not gotten to experience that final long goodbye with her.”
Her poem is a reminder that saying goodbye is just the ritual to honor and give thanks for friendship, “All the reverence, all the gratitude, everything that happens before the goodbye should matter more than the goodbye itself.”
The film is the third in a series created with videographer Ryan Cortes with support from a Rasmuson Foundation artist award.
