Lessons on Love Gained from Releasing My Father

“Many of us believe that holding on demonstrates our strength, but at times, it is the act of letting go that defines us.” ~Hermann Hesse

My father was intubated, leaving him unable to return my words.

Regardless, I expressed my love for him.

In response, he gradually signaled from himself to me.

“You love me too?” I inquired.

His eyes widened slightly, and he nodded softly, providing me with the most significant reply his body could convey. I grasped that moment as if it were something tangible in a space where everything else was fading away.

It marked our final shared moment before he began to drift in and out of consciousness, predominantly the latter.

During those initial days, I urged him to battle. To hold on. Partly because I sensed his desire to fight. I understood he wasn’t finished yet. And partly because I was far from finished myself.

I inquired about his statistics and shared them with a physician friend, hopeful for any indication he might improve. Initially, there were a few glimmers of hope, but then they vanished.

With each passing day, his condition felt increasingly bleak. The doctors had fewer suggestions on what else could be done. His body began to display signs of fatigue.

Observing someone I cherished so profoundly, someone who had always represented resilience for me and had been my secure refuge during my youth, become weaker bit by bit was devastating. I felt powerless, diminutive, and adrift, as if my world were collapsing around me.

I longed for more of his comforting, safe embraces. More of the stability I experienced with him. I just wanted additional time.

But not this way.

After some very candid discussions with the doctors, it became evident that he would not awaken. We could keep him on life support, but he was suffering. I couldn’t accept keeping him in that state simply to alleviate my own pain.

The decision to withdraw life support was perhaps the most challenging choice I’ve ever faced. However, his peace was more important than my desperation to have him stay.

So, the next time I addressed him, I softly whispered in his ear, “I know you did your best. It’s okay. We will be fine. You can depart.”

I drifted through that day as if in a dream. It felt surreal to ride the subway amidst people, most likely engaged in an ordinary day, while I had just made the choice to allow my father to pass away.

For a long time, I held onto that moment in a state of shocked disbelief. How could life continue to progress when mine had shattered? How could there be commuters, coffee runs, casual conversations, and dinner plans while one of the most fundamental loves of my life was gone?

At the outset, grief was acute and immediate. It resided close to the surface. It manifested as the pain of missing him, the shock of his absence, and the disbelief that someone so integral to my existence could simply cease to be.

Over time, the grief has not vanished, but it has transformed. Initially, it felt vast and consuming, as if it occupied all the air in the space. There was fear present as well: How do I navigate a world without him? What does that imply?

Years later, it feels more like a gentle, familiar ache. More like, Thank you for the love. I still wish you were here.

And amidst that transformation, I began to recognize something I couldn’t grasp when I was engulfed in it: letting go does not equate to giving up. Sometimes, it is the most loving choice we can make.

Before my father’s passing, I think a part of me associated love with clinging on. With fighting more fiercely. With refusing to loosen my grasp. Letting go seemed unfathomable, nearly like a treachery.

It felt as if, by asserting that this shouldn’t happen or that this shouldn’t be the conclusion, I could somehow alter what was transpiring before my eyes.

Yet eventually, I could sense how much of my pain was linked not just to losing him but also to the depth of my desire for it not to be real. Grief tends to reveal where we continue to struggle against reality.

I yearned for more time. I desired a different conclusion—for the narrative to unfold differently. I wanted life to be more compassionate than it was.

But it didn’t.

And that in itself was a heartbreak.

I believe this is why letting go can be so challenging in numerous aspects of life, not just in death. We do not merely cling to individuals. We cling to dreams, plans, identities, expectations, and versions of life we believed would endure longer or appear distinct by now.

We hold on because something held significance. Because we are unprepared. Because relinquishing our grip compels us to confront how much has altered and how little control we genuinely possess.

Alongside the loss itself is the apprehension of uncertainty: How do I progress from this point? Who am I without this? What steps do I take now?

However, sometimes what we’re really clinging to is not the thing itself. It’s the hope that it can still be altered, the desire that the conclusion can still change, and the refusal to confront reality because it causes too much pain.

Letting go does not imply that what we cherished was insignificant. It does not mean we cease to care or that circumstances suddenly become equitable.

And it is not the same as giving up on ourselves, others, or our aspirations. Sometimes, it signifies loosening our grip on how something must unfold, enabling us to start to embrace life as it is.

This realization has transformed how I navigate endings now, though not all at once, and not without resistance. It’s one thing to comprehend letting go intellectually, and another to embody it physically when something we value is shifting.

I have discovered that prior to encouraging myself to reflect, I often need to first acknowledge what’s happening in my body—the tension in my chest, the instinct to brace, the part of me that longs to hold on more tightly.

Addressing that response with tenderness assists me in softening enough to inquire: Am I clinging to this because it still feels authentic, or because I’m fighting to accept that it is altering?

Sometimes I ask: Can I honor what this represented to me without requiring it to remain precisely as it was?

And sometimes the question is even more straightforward: What am I afraid letting go will compel me to feel?

I continue to miss my father. I still wish I could embrace him. I wish life had provided us with more time.

But I no longer perceive that final act as surrender.

I perceive it as love devoid of the illusion of control. Love that could no longer fix, negotiate, or retain him here. Love that could solely convey the truth.

You tried. It’s okay. We will be fine. You can depart.

I believe many of us are conditioned to respect the aspects of ourselves that endure, persevere, and continuously fight. Sometimes those attributes are profoundly necessary.

Yet, there are also times when strength manifests in a softer manner than we anticipate. More yielding. More gentle.

Sometimes strength is about loosening our grip.

At times, letting go does not signify the absence of love, hope, or meaning, but the moment we cease insisting that life be something other than what it is.

And perhaps healing commences there—not when we stop caring, but when we stop believing that gripping tighter will alter the truth of what has already arrived.