I spent the remainder of the semester pushing myself through classes, work, and home life. Summer came quietly. The kids and I filled our days with pool time, movies, and a road trip I can barely recall. Most of it feels like a blur. What I remember most isn’t the moments themselves, but the overwhelming numbness that settled deep in my soul.
One night, I had a dream about him.
In the dream, I kept trying to reach him, calling over and over, but there was no answer. I was invited to a “welcome home” party thrown in his honor. There were crowds of people, and he moved easily among them, stopping to talk in small groups. But he was always just out of reach.
I called his name again and again, but he never turned toward me. I pushed through the crowd, desperate to get to him, my voice rising with urgency. “Paul, wait… stop!”
I chased him with everything in me, refusing to give up. Finally, I caught hold of his shirt as he continued moving forward. I begged him to stop, to just look at me.
He stopped abruptly.
When he turned, his blue eyes met mine, stern and unyielding. And then he said, “Tonya, just let go!”
I woke with a jolt, tears soaking my pillow, my heart shattering all over again.
When I woke, the pain felt just as real as the loss itself. I didn’t want to let go—every part of me fought against it, even in my sleep. But his words stayed with me, echoing long after I opened my eyes.
Somewhere beneath the heartbreak, there was also understanding.
Maybe he wasn’t turning away from me—maybe he was trying to set me free. Not from loving him, but from chasing what I could never reach again. Because maybe this is the part of grief no one prepares you for—the moment you realize that holding on too tightly can hurt just as much as the loss itself.
His words didn’t feel like rejection—they felt like release. Not a severing of love, but a quiet invitation to loosen my grip on the pain. I may never stop reaching for him in the quiet spaces of my heart, but maybe I don’t have to chase him anymore.
Maybe “let go” isn’t an ending.
Maybe it’s the beginning of learning how to live with the love that’s still here.
“Maybe letting go isn’t about losing them… maybe it’s about learning how to love them without reaching.”
Ebbs & Flows 