Contest #166 winner 🏆

Letting go

Submitted into Contest #166 in response to: Set your story at a retirement or leaving party. ... view prompt

144 comments

Sad Inspirational Creative Nonfiction

This story contains sensitive content

I dedicate this story to my partner and to everyone who has carried or is carrying the burden of grief.


Sitting by the bed, holding my hand, you think my mind is fighting against the decision of my body to quit life’s game. My eyes are closed, but I sense your will through the fingers laced tightly around my own. Tenderness is a force and you stake my claim to life through the insistent pressure of your hand. How it has grown over these long years from its immaculate small perfection to this manifestation of adult capability: greeting strangers, shaking on deals, carrying children of your own. From the first moment, holding tight to my little finger in the hush of the darkened hospital room, it wanted to latch onto me and the world. You needed reassuring then; you do now. 


Beloved child, my hand rests peacefully in your own. Let it speak to you with the words I can no longer form: I am ready, so let me go. 


Quitting seems such a nasty word. I used to think so too. Lying here, I remember telling you not to give up; to keep trying at those school projects, at winning over the sour-faced teacher, at striving to do your best in the world of work and family. So, it is no surprise that you desperately want me to go another round; you aren’t ready for me to hang up the boots and to let this be the final whistle. 


Doctors speak in plain language of their expectations for this last round of play. You are resigned, seeming to concur with their prognosis; yet, when they are gone to the next ward, I feel the pulse of rage in the heartbeat of your hand. It troubles the peace I feel begin to slip about me like the blanket I wrapped you in, our blessed first night together.


Beloved child, tuck me into this long sleep. 


Strength is sometimes a burden. I sense your head bowed with the weight of this demand: to fight on for my life. You are a pillar of strength threatened by tides of emotion. Let them come; lay down the boulder of your mighty will and trust me that there is no wrong or shame in this. It is ok to feel as small as a pebble, waves washing over it, again and again, caught up in the pounding tides of life; but there is also so much strength, even in the smallest stone. 


If the doctor’s words have lit a fighting fire in you, they have quenched my last longings. I have been delivered from the exhausting expectation to struggle and soldier on. My body has long known the relief of a lie-down, now my mind can too. At the end of this illness, I can finally embrace myself once more, body and mind hugging each other tight.


Nurses come, those kind attendees with their needles and bottles to help ease the passing of my days. Quietly and efficiently they dismantle the apparatus that has helped me cling to life. Monitors and machines are disconnected and wheeled away; drips suspend their drops and beeps are silenced. Life lines are hauled out and I am my own net, catching my life’s dreams and memories. Holding them safe inside me, I am ready to let go. 


Deep within you, I wish for a long-lost memory to stir. Do you think you can remember our first night together? There was noise, so much! The bustle of nurses, the instructions of doctors; machines robotically noted key data while I gasped my ragged breath and blew blast after blast on the trumpet of pain. Everything was labouring and then you shuddered into this world on a wave of love. 


You added your noise, of course you did, roaring in a way that silenced everything else. I knew I had never heard a more beautiful sound than your first-born cry. There must have been other noises: temperatures read and recorded, pens scribbling on charts; your armband identification filled in and the blue plastic snapped onto your little wrist; sheets rustling as they were changed and freshly laid; casters clicking on the floor as we were wheeled to another ward, but I was deaf to it all. The only thing that returns to me, in the serenity of now, is the silence we shared as the rest of the world seemed to sleep; those first hours together when it was just us two, with eyes only for each other.


Eventually you closed yours and drifted off to sleep. I was beyond exhaustion and yet, watching your little chest rise and fall in a rhythm so wonderfully familiar and new, I pushed tiredness away as I held you closer to me. I wanted that night to never end; to put off that moment when we would be parted for the first time, even if you were just in a crib a few feet from my bed. My will was strong but eventually the night nurse came by and laughed at my stoic fight to stay awake and keep guard. 


“He’ll be alright, he knows his mum is right beside him. Remember, there’s plenty of time for tiredness in the nights to come!”


She was right. When she lifted you from my arms and placed you in the crib at my side, you never stirred. The last thing I remember before sleep claimed me, was stroking your little hand with the tips of my fingers, realising that you knew I was there, and I knew you were there for me too.


Silence cups us as it did that night eighty years ago. Yours was the small hand then, now it is mine. Things seem different, but nothing really changes at all. Our hands will always reach out to each other across time and space; but in the circle of your memory, you'll reach me and we'll hold each other once more.


Beloved child, my hand rests peacefully in your own. Let it speak to you with the words I can no longer form. Tuck me into this long sleep.


I am ready, and you are too, so let me go.


October 07, 2022 10:57

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144 comments

Wanda Cornelius
16:50 Mar 25, 2024

Such a lovely story,there is nothing more powerful than a mother's love.

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Rebecca Miles
22:35 Mar 25, 2024

Thank you so much Wanda. I hope to read a story from you on Reedsy soon.

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Graham Kinross
09:48 Dec 31, 2023

This is beautiful and heartbreaking. I’ve never seen my wife as happy as she was in the photo of her holding our daughter for the first time. Living eighty years after the birth of your child would surely have been a long and fulfilling experience. I think there’s definitely a point for most people when they’ve seen enough. I read the letter by one woman who had lived a hundred years, had kids and grandchildren and said the world was too different for her after a century that had seen two world wars, the rise of computers and the internet. S...

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Rosie Lau
06:53 Aug 07, 2023

am going to use this story to do my short story presentation in school, find it really meaningful!!

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Jae-Lex Linsey
19:15 Apr 02, 2023

This was a beautiful and moving piece of written art. I especially loved the beautiful wordings, "body and mind hugging each other tight."

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Janhavi Ot7 Army
09:59 Mar 21, 2023

Loved reading but i haven't understand wht's the story

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Annie Roi Harmon
00:07 Feb 23, 2023

I love this story, it was beautiful. But it was also frustrating to me because I read it simply so I could understand how to write creative nonfiction. That's what Reedsy hasn't listed under. But but this one, and one just after it we're a dog is the narrator, cannot possibly be something that the author experienced. Unless there is more for me to learn about creative nonfiction..? Which is why I came on here looking in the first place....

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Rebecca Miles
06:29 Feb 23, 2023

Hi Annie Roi. I'm glad you found it beautiful even if it didn't unfold all its tricks like a pack of cards. I suppose this tag, unlike most others, won't have so many conventions as it's based on something real and that topic could vary hugely. Romance, well it might be first love, a breakup, a marriage, unrequited but love will be central to it. But creative non fiction is far more " anything goes" as it's based on anything that might be possible in life. So in my story, my mother in law passes. This is the nonfiction bit; it actually happ...

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05:25 Feb 18, 2023

Hello. your piece is very heartwarming.. btw. can I use your work? I just need a sample of creative nonfiction story for my analysis. Hope you won't mind it.

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Rebecca Miles
06:27 Feb 18, 2023

If it's just for analysis that's fine. Thanks for asking.

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Jane Andrews
22:18 Feb 10, 2023

I've come to this one late after reading your most recent short listed story. I was scrolling down to see what else you'd written and wanted to see your winning entry. It's a moving take on the prompt - it brought back memories of when my mother was in hospital with advanced bowel cancer three years ago and the feeling I had then that the parent/child roles were reversed. (I wrote about it, but not as elegantly as you.) There are some really beautiful lines in this - I think other people have commented on most of them already - and these are...

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Rebecca Miles
08:08 Feb 11, 2023

Thanks so much Jane. This brought us together as a family in grief but more than anything I wanted it to be celebratory too. In sharing it, I hoped others would relate to the loving, losing and letting go and feel the story, in a small way, helped. I really hope this was the case for you.

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Buster King
22:17 Jan 19, 2023

I lost my Mom recently this story really touched me

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Rebecca Miles
05:31 Jan 20, 2023

I'm glad it helped. That was the main reason why I wrote it. Stories can really bring us together at hard times. I wish you really all the best.

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Dan Coglianese
20:50 Jan 18, 2023

This was a fantastic story!

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Sarah Whitfield
21:00 Jan 15, 2023

I found this movingly beautiful. Such a tenderly, touching story. Well done.

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Ariane E Felipe
17:23 Dec 15, 2022

I created a account because I needed to comment. This short story made me cry. A lot. I don't even know why. But I'm crying. God, beautiful writing. Congratulations! (Sorry for bad english, english is not my first language)

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BRUCE MARTIN
05:42 Dec 10, 2022

A beautiful, sensitively-written story that caused a lump in my throat as I read it. Very nice work!

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Wally Schmidt
16:59 Nov 28, 2022

I have been guilty of trying to hold on to those who are ready to part and your prose beautifully captures this bitter-sweet struggle. I love how your story comes full circle and goes back to the birth of the child where the bonding first occurred, before circling back to the inevitable. This is a truly beautiful story.

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Annabella Bones
15:47 Nov 25, 2022

Beautifully written. Thank you so much for sharing. I recently wrote a story here based on the passing of my husband, and the immediate grieving effects. I'm grateful for every comment I receive, however it seems like nobody quite understood the context of the grief. My husband passed away of cancer after a very short and devastating 3-month diagnosis. It was hardly any time at all to even process the diagnosis before he was gone. He moved to Georgia from California years ago just to have a life with me, so once he passed away, I carried t...

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Rebecca Miles
20:31 Nov 25, 2022

Hi Anna, I'm so sorry you felt defeated when sharing your story. Writing which is honest and comes from dark places is some of the most moving ever written. We are all of us, at some point, going to have to go into those shadowlands; in fact, if we're truthful, we'll go in and out multiple times. All that dark energy: shame, grief, guilt, we can transform that into something that may well help us and others too, wonderful, real, human stories. Write for yourself and others will follow. I hope you're in a better space now and I wish you joy...

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KJ KEITH Cuizon
12:19 Nov 18, 2022

Rebecca Miles. Who is the character of the story?

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Rebecca Miles
15:24 Nov 18, 2022

Are you, by any chance, a student of mine? ...

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KJ KEITH Cuizon
12:17 Nov 18, 2022

Also, What is the theme (moral) of your story? Please answer I need it

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KJ KEITH Cuizon
12:15 Nov 18, 2022

Rebecca Miles. What is the setting,Time,Place, of your story because I use your story of my class and I need a setting where I could find the Time and place of your story

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Rebecca Miles
12:17 Nov 18, 2022

Please do not use my work in any class without my permission. It is copyrighted.

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Jonathan Abioye
19:28 Nov 13, 2022

Sometimes, writing fiction seems easier because you make up stuff. It come with its own challenges.. But you see writing non fiction is a whole ballgame, especially telling your story, or truth. Is it too much detail for my comfort? Do they feel it like I feel it. It's a lot to juggle. And you pulled it off well, I had to come back to read.. Many times we carry the burden of grief. Sometimes even we can't tell the extent of it.... Some days I even imagine what others will feel like when they grieve about me. I wish I'll know some ...

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Jemika .
17:49 Nov 13, 2022

Beautifully written. Congrats!

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Rebecca Miles
18:03 Nov 13, 2022

Thanks Jemika; I really appreciate you taking the time.

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