Letting Go II

 I have come to realize that the organization of mourning has a time-tested sense to it. To neither mourn, nor to mourn too long does not serve the living well. But to take the time one needs, with no apology, and then to say to oneself, that time is passed, and it is time to resume my life is the epitome of Letting Go.

 How often do we save something, some gift, or some tchotchke for years, taking up space on a table, or even in a box on a shelf, and then at some later time when we are really looking around ourselves, notice it and ask ourselves, “why have we kept that all these years?” So we take it off the table, and then enjoy the open space, or fill it with something more significant to our life today. Letting Go is opening the space for something new to come in.  Not that I am suggesting that anything will ever fill the space that my brother or any loved one-- person or pet—held in me heart,  but letting go of the sorrow is slowly but completely, opening the space for the gratitude

 When I wrote about Letting Go a couple of days ago, it was because I wanted to banish  my sorrow at the awareness of the losses of future good times I would have had with my brother if he had lived longer, and if we had had the chance to experience the years ahead together as siblings. In the almost two months since his death, I have experienced all the roller coaster emotions that are grief. But I have also been aware of my great good fortune in having experienced a close and loving relationship with a wonderful brother. After a death, eulogies tend to reel off the many admirable qualities of the deceased, but it was not the qualities of my brother that make me grateful, it was the quality of what we shared.  So the process of Letting Go for me has been one of evolution, one of emerging into a freer, more open space to let in new things and people--not to replace what and who is no longer there, for that can never be--but to appreciate the many ways in which I can be happy and feel gratitude for all the days ahead of me. .

Letting Go

I have been thinking about what it means to “let go”.  But ‘letting go’ became an issue only recently, when my brother died. I am only now coming to grips with what ‘letting go’ has come to mean to me. It means not only knowing that he will never be on the other end of the phone sharing a story or a thought with me, but much more it means letting go of the possibility of all the joy we would have shared in the years to come. It means letting go of the fun we would have had In other words, letting go means foregoing the thought of a future shared with someone who knew me better in many ways than I knew myself.

I do not recall any need to ‘let go’ of my parents. They had lived long lives. They had used up their years, and illness and decline made their deaths seem a logical conclusion. But when a younger person dies, with them die hopes and plans, dreams and designs, maps and schemes that will never be fulfilled, never be brought to fruition. There are thoughts that will go unshared, good that will go undone, ideas lost.

There are so many times in life when letting go is just about the hardest thing that we can ever imagine doing. What ‘letting go’ means is different for every person, and for every situation. My mind and heart tell me that letting go is a necessary part of living, of going forward: I am making room to embrace the gratitude that I feel for the time we shared in this world. I am grateful that there was a person in my life who grasped the essence of who I am in the most fundamental way possible, and made me feel like that was just fine.

With the realization that ‘letting go’ makes room for new things, opens up the space for new joy and new plans, I see that the time it has taken me to let go has been well spent.