First, with the illness, I believed that letting go meant giving up: not fighting for the other person, leaving everything to chance. That's why I kept the faith until the end, but I also fought until the end, believing until the end that love was enough for miracles to happen and that the end would never come. Just like someone who, despite having bleeding hands, clings to a thin rope to avoid falling into the void, so did I in the face of my nephew's illness. I don't deny that keeping up my spirits, my hope, and my strength was very exhausting, but it never crossed my mind to throw in the towel, leave it up to God or fate, or give up. At one point, I felt like I was carrying the world on my shoulders, but I kept running anyway.

Then death came, and I clung to the pain, to the rage: I didn't want to give up my nephew's presence in my life. I wanted him back; I couldn't accept not seeing him anymore, his eternal absence. I clung to my memories of him until I was worn out inside. I cried so much that there were days when I woke up with my eyes so swollen that I didn't even recognize myself. Happiness seemed uncomfortable to me, and if it had been up to me, I would have closed all the doors in my life and shouted, “Stop the world, I want to get off.”

But one day, I don't know how long after, I was able to speak without a lump in my throat, I was able to laugh without feeling guilty, and above all, I was able to say goodbye to my nephew. I let him go, I accepted his death, I understood why he had left. And with that came a peace I had never felt before. I could describe that state as finding the shade of a tree after a long run. After that, I made peace with death and stopped seeing it as an enemy, and began to see it as part of life.

It's clear that letting go took time: I think it's a process that involves feeling and then unfeeling many things. Today I remember that, although I never said, “God, thy will be done,” leaving everything in God's hands, I did say many times, “God, take that pain away from him and give it to me.” And yes, my nephew is no longer in pain. The pain is mine; it belongs to me now. Just as the gratitude for having known an angel, my beautiful nephew David, even if only for a short time, belongs to me.

All images are mine, taken of flowers in the cemetery, and the text was translated using Deepl.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Until a future reading, friends