I remember sitting on my bed with my daughter as we looked through the hospice booklet. He rested beside us in his hospice bed. Together we read what to expect as one’s body naturally winds down. How, approaching death, the person needs to hear that his loved ones will be okay after his passing. The reassurance that he may go peacefully knowing his family is okay.
He was preparing to let go of his physical self. We were preparing to let go of Daddy. My sweet husband. The man I married 18 years ago. The one who held us and provided for us. Each of the older children and I whispered to him he was free to go when it was time. That there was nothing to worry about. We would be okay. We were so proud of the father he had been, the husband he was, the brilliant person who lit up a room every time he walked in.
We assured him it was okay to let go.
And he let go.
He peacefully and beautifully transitioned early that morning. Body and soul.
But what about us? How, as survivors, do we let go?
Yes, we truthfully told him we would be okay. And we are.
I knew as he let go of his life with us, we needed to let go too.
I sat in my grief counselor’s office when he gave me this task.
Take a few weeks to think about it, he said, then write it.
I did.
I followed through. And I wish I could say that somehow grief magically disappeared, but it didn’t.
What did happen was something quite amazing in it’s own right.
In this four-part series, I’ll recount how I let go of my beloved husband, father to our five children, and took that first step forward as an unmarried woman, an only parent.
A widow.
Letting go is not the same as forgetting. In fact, I could never forget because each time I look into those five little pairs of eyes, I see him. Every time a song comes on that we loved, I remember him.
For no reason at all, I think of him.
I walk forward without him there, yet with him here. And I remember. 💙
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