The Quiet Courage to Let Go

Most of what they talked about just went over my head. I was very young when the conversations started. But eventually, I understood that Aunt Nari had to get over him.

This was in the early 1960s. I did not know who “him” was. His name was never mentioned. He existed only as a shadow in conversations, someone who occupied a great deal of space in Aunt Nari’s heart without ever appearing fully in the story.

She visited my mother often. Looking back, I suspect she needed somewhere safe to place her sadness. My mother was good at listening. She did not interrupt. She did not judge. She just sat with people and allowed them to empty their burdens.

As a child, I often drifted in and out of those conversations. Sometimes I would play nearby. Sometimes I would pretend not to listen. What I heard came in fragments.

When I first heard Aunt Nari speak about him, I was around nine years old, when adults often assumed children understood less than they actually did.

They spoke freely around us, and I understood enough to know that someone had hurt her.

What I did not understand was who he was, what had happened, or why it seemed to matter so much.

Over the next five years, I continued collecting pieces of the story. One conversation would reveal a detail. Another would hint at a feeling. Yet another would offer a glimpse into a memory.

Still, the story remained unfinished. I knew the middle, but not the beginning. I knew the ache, but not its cause.

Then, in 1968, when I was fifteen and studying at a boarding school several miles from home, the final piece arrived.

I came home during a school break and found Aunt Nari having lunch with my mother.

The smell reached me before I entered the kitchen.

Fish cooked in a bamboo tube.

No matter how old I become, I still believe there are few things more tempting than that smell.

I joined them at the table, pretending it was the food that drew me there.

In truth, I was curious.

As we ate, the conversation drifted naturally towards old memories.

And then, for the first time, Aunt Nari spoke his name.

Ramon.

The missing shape suddenly had a face.

According to Aunt Nari, Ramon had a way of listening that made people feel not merely noticed but seen. He remembered small details, asked thoughtful questions, and gave his full attention. For a lonely heart, such attention could feel like sunlight after a long season of rain.

“That was part of the problem,” she said. “People like that do not realise what they are planting inside others.”

At first, she told herself they were only friends. But feelings rarely announce themselves. They grow quietly—in shared laughter, thoughtful gestures, timely messages, and conversations that linger.

Slowly, she began imagining a future. Nothing grand, just ordinary happiness: walking together, growing old, sharing worries and victories.

“My mind filled in the gaps,” she said. “It always does when the heart becomes impatient.”

The problem was that she was building that future alone — or at least, that was what she eventually realised.

Somewhere along the way, she stopped asking whether Ramon was building the same future. She assumed he was. Only later did she realise she had mistaken possibility for certainty.

The signs had always been there. Ramon was kind but inconsistent, warm but never fully present. Sometimes he made her feel important; other times, he disappeared emotionally for days or weeks. His attention was like weather, and she began measuring her happiness against his moods — analysing words, silences, delays, searching for meanings that might not exist.

Still, she stayed, perhaps not with the man he was, but with the version of him she believed might eventually emerge.

Years later, she said the cruellest part was not losing him, but losing a future that had never truly existed. Imagined futures can feel as real as memories.

When it ended, there was no confrontation. It simply stopped continuing, like a river slowly drying. The door never slammed; it merely stopped opening.

Afterwards, she waited for messages that never came. She replayed conversations, examining every word, every pause, smile and silence, searching for where everything had gone wrong.

But the past is stubborn. It does not rewrite itself just because we are finally ready to understand it differently.

At night, she lay awake imagining alternate endings. In one, Ramon realised what she meant to him; in another, he returned with explanations. Yet every version ended the same way. Morning brought the same reality.

By day, she worked, answered questions, smiled when necessary; attended family gatherings and fulfilled her responsibilities. Outwardly, she seemed normal. Inside, she felt slightly out of phase with the world, as though watching life from behind glass.

Friends, including my mother, offered the familiar reassurance: “Time will help.”

Perhaps they were right. But time does not heal like medicine. It works more quietly, eroding pain like water flowing over stone — slowly, patiently, almost invisibly. Then, one day, you realise that the shape of your sorrow has changed.

Then one afternoon, she realised she had gone an hour without thinking of Ramon. The absence frightened her; grief had become familiar. Yet life continued — the morning light, wet earth, chickens settling, ordinary days. Slowly, she began noticing them again. Life never asked permission to move forward. It simply did, and she found comfort in that.

One evening, walking home from the family paddy farm beneath the fading sun, she watched people passing with baskets, tools, worries, and responsibilities. For the first time, she understood: she was not uniquely broken. She was simply human.

Everyone carried something — loss, disappointment, regret, longing. No one escaped untouched.

She thought of Ramon, but the sharpness was gone. The memory remained, like an old photograph tucked away in a drawer: meaningful, recognisable, but no longer dominating the room.

And then she understood. He had not been “The One.” He had been a chapter — important, meaningful, transformative—but only a chapter, not the entire book.

I am much older now than the boy who once sat listening to Aunt Nari. I have never known heartbreak exactly as she did, yet I think of her often.

Perhaps some people are not meant to stay. Perhaps they pass through our lives not to remain, but to teach us.

There is a difference between holding on and being held back. For years, Aunt Nari confused the two.

As the months became years, she stopped bargaining with the past. She stopped asking it to change, stopped imagining conversations that would never happen. The silence where Ramon once existed became quieter, less demanding, less urgent.

She never claimed to forget him. That would have been dishonest. Memory does not disappear simply because healing has begun. Instead, it changes shape. It softens.

The stone on her heart did not vanish overnight. It became smaller, then lighter, until it was easier to carry. Eventually, there were days when she forgot it entirely.

Reminders still came: a song, a familiar smell, a phrase spoken by a stranger. For a moment, she would find herself inside an old memory. But those moments grew shorter. They lost their power. They passed, and she remained.

Eventually, she understood what she could not have understood while living through it: love that does not stay does not necessarily fail. It simply ends where it was always going to end.

Not every question receives an answer. Not every ending brings closure. Some things conclude quietly, like books left unfinished because the reader has already moved elsewhere.

And perhaps that is enough.

I often think of the younger Aunt Nari — the woman who believed that holding on tighter might somehow change the outcome. I wish I had been old enough then to sit beside her, not to offer advice or correction, but to remind her that letting go is not the same as losing. Sometimes, it is the first act of returning to yourself.

What she thought was a chain around her heart became an unexpected instruction. It revealed where she had abandoned herself in service of imagined futures, and how easily intensity can disguise itself as destiny.

Near the end of that lunch, she said something I have never forgotten: “Now, when I think of him, there is still a trace of warmth. No pain. Not longing. Just recognition.”

Perhaps that is what moving on truly means—not forgetting or pretending the story never mattered, but no longer standing before a door that has stopped opening.

Aunt Nari passed away more than 20 years ago. When I remember her, I do not think first of Ramon. I think of her resilience, and the quiet courage it took to release a future she had once treasured. I think of the grace with which she eventually made peace with uncertainty.

Her life taught me that a meaningful life is not measured by what we manage to keep, but by what we learn to carry lightly after loss. It is built by continuing despite disappointment, remaining open despite heartbreak, and finding beauty again after believing it has disappeared.

In the end, her story was never really about Ramon. It was about becoming herself again—and learning that healing is not the disappearance of pain, but the quiet return of life around it.

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quote photo:
Hermann Hesse

quote:
‘Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.’ — Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), a German-born Swiss novelist, poet, and painter, widely regarded as one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work, which was praised for combining humanistic ideals with profound psychological insight.

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The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at [email protected]