Releasing

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It was two years back, we as a family had to go through demise of our mother, after a rather fast progressive dementia. The experience of releasing our mother to a fast progressing inevitable end, was tough but we learned much through that experience. For me trained as a physician, releasing to death was ingrained in my mind as failure. To realize that releasing was inevitable is the best that can happen in the given context, made the bereavement process easier.

This experience did change my perspectives much. Subsequently as I practiced and taught medicine, I would advise families about releasing their loved ones. I would teach junior doctors about thinking through these issues before we communicate with the family. And i felt i had matured in my thinking. Till this week.

I have been sitting beside my father who has a CRF and fracture pelvis struggling in pain. Trying various permutations and combinations of pain killers, but realising that he has lost his will to live. He has had 90 years’ great contribution in many spheres and into many lives. But I was still struggling with holding on vs releasing. I am realizing that, it is easy to advise others about releasing, but when it comes to your own, it is not easy. Even previous experiences may not be enough. I have to learn these lessons each time, learn and relearn! What am l learning through this experience is that, I need to have certain foundational principles which guide my releasing.

One - I need to see releasing as caring and loving. If I love the person I would release him or her. Two, I should release with a sense of fulfilment. For God has enabling him or her to run the race which was set before and complete it within the time given. Three, I should release with a sense of gratitude, for what the person has contributed into my life and lives of others around him or her. Four, I should release with a faith that God who began the work in his life is the one who is able to complete it, in this world and even in the world beyond (I believe in such one, it may be different for some others). And finally I should release with senses of hope – Hope that one day in eternity we will meet again (this might be different for people of differing faiths). Hope that when it is time for me to leave, I will be ready to leave without holding on and that I would have prepared my children and loved ones to release me with much more ease than what I am doing now!

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