This time last year, I was sitting by my husband's bedside in the hospital and I said the words that were the most beautiful and the most heart-breaking words I would ever say: It is okay if you want to let go now."
Those words were the most beautiful and loving words I could say to him. I knew how courageously he had been battling with prostate cancer for 15 years. I knew how sick he had become, particularly in the last six weeks of his life,. I knew how little strength he had left. I knew how every minute of every day had become painful and difficult. And I also knew that whatever life he had left, even if the antibiotics did their job and clear his infections, it would be with very little or no quality of life at all. I just couldn't let that happen to the love of my life. I had always promised him to be with him throughout this whole journey and I had kept my promise while we had been fighting against this illness: I had accompanied him to scans, I had accompanied him to doctors appointments, I had advocated for him wherever and whenever I could, I had cared for him at home. And now it was time to keep my promise by supporting him on the very last part of this journey as well. I felt that, even though nature would take its course anyway and he would die when the time had come, he would probably also try and hold on for as long as possible because of his love for life, because of his love for me and because fighting was what we had always done and what we had so gotten used to. I knew I had to give him permission to stop fighting and holding on and to finally let go.
But as loving and beautiful as those words were, and as right as it felt to say them, they were, also the most heart-breaking words I would ever say because, of course, I didn't want to lose Paul and couldn't imagine what life would be like without him - sometimes I even felt that, if he had to go, it would be best to go together.
I think it is tragic when we can't let our loved ones go. I do understand that imagining a life without the loved one is heart-breaking, scary and often simply impossible. And yet, when we say, "Please don't go! Please don't leave me alone!" it is selfish of us because, in those moments, we don't see that our loved one, whom we so much want to keep in our life, is going through intense suffering, maybe despite all available medication intense pain and discomfort as well, and that our despair may be the very thing that not only makes them hold on longer for our sake but that also makes them feel distressed because the last thing that they want is for us to be unhappy. Our loved ones have been fighting a courageous battle - whether it was for years or only for a couple of weeks or months. And in those final hours, when we know we have the words in us they so much need to hear, this is the last loving thing we can do for them: to let them go.
I am so relieved, and will always be relieved, that I was able to give Paul permission to let go. And I will never forget the relief in his voice when he said, "Ah that's good to know that I can let go - in case the pain gets too bad." I think he could feel that I wouldn't want to keep him with me at any cost. This was when to love him meant to let him go.
