When We Let Go

by Rochelle B. Weinstein

“One day, you’re going to tell our children this story. Sure, you’ll probably fib a little about some of the details, but you’ll tell them, the four of them, maybe five, about that day your best friend fell in love with you—

Sometimes the things people don’t say hurt worse than the things they do. It’s just the way of grief and loss. People think they’re doing you a favor by avoiding the tougher subjects, but the silence only makes the absence bigger, deafening.

Dad was tight-lipped about loss. The closest he ever came to describing any struggle was when he compared grief to planting flowers without light, crops without sufficient water. Deprivation, he called it.

“See how quickly things change, Avery? You need to grab sunshine when you can. The real tragedy is living the rest of your life in the dark.”

I reassure her it’s going to be okay, even though I told her that once before. And I begin to understand more and more what it means to be a parent. It’s hoping for the best while advising and consoling, knowing there are never guarantees. It’s saying the same thing over and over again until it sticks. Never getting tired. Never giving up. And it’s never walking away.

“I figured you put it so high so no one would see, because then it might not come true.” “I’m not superstitious,” he says. “I put it that high so whoever pulls strings up there would pick mine first.”

I’d been waiting for the rain and the cleansing and renewal it brings with it. Rain also brings growth and revival, and it hides the tears that come with goodbye.