Love and the Art of Letting Go

For as long as I can remember, I've considered the question of what love is, as I know it when I see it.

The greatest poets and literary writers have, time and again, defined love.

I cannot.

But I know it when I see it.

Still, there is always an infinite amount of opportunities to define and redefine it, because it is an amorphous experience that, when true, reverberates.

Love is life, and it is letting go.

Let me explain.

During my time in Europe, I have had the privilege to get to know a fellow New Yorker and expat.

A mutual friend connected us, and we bonded over the fact that we were both New Yorkers and shared similar, yet different, trajectories in our lives with our husbands.

We've shared the highs and lows of our lives daily for years.

My friend found herself at a moment in her life when her best friend, partner, and husband faced his mortality.

We've talked about his "shutting down," and she expressed her sadness over the choice he made—in other words, not to fight.

Recently, when I read a text message in which she mentioned her sadness about this choice, and how she was gifting him the space to make it for his life during his winter season, I replied that I know I would tell my husband at this point in our lives, "fight, fight, fight."

Yet, her decision to step back and give her husband the space to stop fighting if he needed to is an act of immense love and compassion.

It is an act of kindness and respect for her partner after she did everything possible to take care of and support him after a precipitous decline.

And as we've discussed the reality unfolding with the loss of life’s spark in his eyes, and the will to keep going and fighting, I remembered other conversations we’ve had as this moment has evolved.

She believes, as do I, that the so-called “shut down” had to do with his gift to her.

In his mind, gone was the man, due to age and illness, who traveled the world and protected her.

He adored her—and loves her still, and he wouldn't have wanted to be a weight and a strain to her.

And so, he chose to gift her the freedom to keep going.

Each of them, in their way, demonstrated the most significant sacrifice of love for the sake of it—letting go.

With our intellect, we realize that nothing ever stays the same.

Even a mountain changes each day in fallen leaves, broken branches, and dirt shifted by the wind.

Nothing stays the same, and one of the most significant gifts we can give to those we love is to let go when the moment arrives—and it always arrives sooner or later, as impermanence is the nature of existence.

Every parent knows this as their child grows up.

For those of us fortunate enough to have known "the love of my life" and experienced the great heights and most profound depths of learning and experience, letting go of that love for the sake of that love is the biggest gift one can give to another.

In other words, sometimes, letting go is a definition of love—perhaps one of the greatest, no matter how painful.

Post-script: This piece was written and scheduled for today. Today, however, her husband passed...

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