I hope you let them go, but never let them leave

It’s difficult coming to terms with someone I’ve known so well suddenly disappearing from my physical life. Their smile fades into a memory only captured by photographs. Their voice trails off into a disembodied recording from a memo or video. Their physical touch simply ceases to exist in any recordable manner. 

The loss of life’s permanence can feel so jarring in a world where death isn’t a part of our day-to-day experience. We’re more than content to let a day or week go by without talking to someone because we’re confident we’ll still be around them in ten years’ time. The people closest to us simply become representations of themselves — live figments tied coincidentally to the mortal world.

When they finally leave for good, however, those physical constructs slip away and we find ourselves confronted with two choices: let them go for good or let your relationship with them transform. 

Eleanor Haley has a M.S. in counseling psychology. She explores this concept in a 2022 blog post, where she advocates for the latter. 

Haley writes in her post “People often keep their relationships with deceased loved ones private for many reasons,” while noting that the aggrieved may be afraid that “they'll be misunderstood by a society that still partly believes ongoing connections are odd.”

Haley’s outlook is framed in the context of her late mother, comparing their relationship after her passing to that of an inventive child’s “imaginary friend.” Haley “began to see [her mother’s] presence everywhere.” Perhaps it’s in this framing that we can avoid the self-deprecation of loss — what Berly McCoy at NPR calls the “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve” thoughts of our time with loved ones. 

Self-deprecation is an inevitable consequence of regret: “I didn’t spend enough time with her,” “I wasn’t a good enough partner to them,” “I didn’t give him enough to succeed” and similar reflections tie us to the physical life the departed leave behind. 

As Haley writes, we limit people’s presence to these physical bounds and allow this regret to fester. I believe we need to remain in touch with people, rather than trying to “move on.” Haley was unsatisfied with decades of grief theory which argued to the contrary.

In the past year, I have lost two grandparents I was very close to and a dog that stayed with my family for 17 years. It’s heartbreaking to see people struggle to stay alive in their last days. 

In my grandpa’s case, the last time I hugged him was June of 2023, chair-ridden but still holding on to his joyful spirit at his home near Winona, Minnesota. He passed away the following September, in the company of those he loved. 

For my grandmother on my Mom’s side, she remained strong, humorous and stubborn well into her twilight years. I saw her last in August of 2023 at a Wedding in Minocqua, Wisconsin. She passed away in April under the care of a hospital in Bradenton, Florida also in the company of her loved ones. I was not present to watch her condition deteriorate, but in my conversations over video calls with her she remained peaceful — but not afraid to aim facetious pot-shots at her friends, much to their amusement. 

This was my blessing in life, watching my elder relatives pass with their heads still about them. Every precious moment I had was spent with the parts of them I loved the most. 

In that light, I understand my experience is not like everyone else’s. Many of us want to let go because the dead leave nothing but painful memories in their wake. 

Some people may have watched their aged beloved succumb to dementia. Perhaps they had a troubled, even abusive relationship with the deceased. All I ask is that if those grieving have any good left to hold on to, then they should try to see that good in the rest of the world. 

When my grandpa passed, my first trip to the supermarket — replete with the sweet corn and tomatoes of an imported fall harvest — reminded me of his passion for growing things. In Winona, I saw five-story offices and gigantic historic buildings that he rebuilt and made into thriving spaces of commerce and work. The night of his funeral was coincidentally also the night of a harvest moon, befitting of a lifelong farmer. 

On the night of my grandma’s passing, I felt compelled to make a fluffy egg salad sandwich, one of the thousands she probably would have made while packing lunches for delivery in suburban Chicago. She also followed me for every meal I would make for those close to me, as she was a regular provider of food to the few neighborhoods she would inhabit in her life. I would also remember those little “Joan-isms,” laconic metaphor and observations that always felt like tomes of ancient wisdom from the library of her storied life. 

I formed something of a relationship with the dead, creating and growing as if they compelled me to. I loved the world around me and held my tongue as if my dearly departed were guiding my inhibitions and emotions. 

Our old dog in her first month was fittingly named “Joanie” after our equally opinionated and stubborn grandmother. She always argued with the neighbor dogs, never liked being dressed up and remained loyal to but one human at a time. Now we see her loyalty, her perseverance and her courage everywhere we look. 

I feel like she’s still following me, her presence demanding my attention as she did in life. She never let me take her on walks of course, but she never left me out of her intense attachment to our family. 

She was the one consistent thing in my life for the time she was here, and now I seek to practice that steadfastness in my own relationships in these weeks following her death. 

I want to have the same relationship now with every creature in my care as I had with her – because it’s what she would have wanted. 

Take this grief-speckled year of my life as an example of what happens when you forget about “moving on” and instead start “carrying on.” I never regret my busy adulthood that prevented me from spending time with them, because now I spend time with them everywhere I go. 

As I said to my family many times during my grandpa’s autumn-colored funeral, “Good people never truly leave us.” I may never be able to move on from the past year, but I think I’ve done something a lot better for myself. 

Never stop loving and communing with the people who leave you. As for the pain you felt when they left you behind, I hope you let it go.