The death of a loved one can be one of the most devastating experiences a human being can go through. This loss is not like the loss of a lover or a job, in that death erases all hope of a new or possible encounter with the other person. Death is final, so letting go is necessary in order to move on. It is not about letting go of love, it is about letting go of pain: accepting that we cannot hold on to the sad and dark feelings that prevent us from moving forward.

I don't remember ever being a person who clung to things. My ability to let go was limitless: material things were not and are not important to me, or at least they are not that fundamental. I have lost a lot of money (two years ago I lost my HIVE account), 10 years ago my car was stolen, and my closet is my sisters' and friends' closet. And even in terms of romantic relationships, I have accepted breakups as necessary and inevitable experiences. I didn't cling to anything. But that self-perception I had changed with the illness and then death of my nephew.

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.