Say something, I'm giving up on you...

 

When I first heard this song, I cried.  So many of life’s losses, so perfectly captured in one heart-breaking song. 

As I read the comments on the song, one in particular stood out: “No no no,” it read.  “The old man in the video isn’t giving up on his wife.  You would never give up on someone you love.”

If only it were that simple.  It’s not, of course, and that’s the reason this song resonates so deeply.  Giving up on someone you love is exactly what it’s about. It’s about the impossibility of walking away from something you love with all your heart.  It’s about letting go, while frantically wishing you could hold on.  

I can clearly recall the very moment when I gave up on my mom. The cancer, never really gone, had returned in full force to ravage her body.  She was sick, so sick, in terrible pain, and lost in a haze of medication-induced confusion.  Her doctor wanted to know if we would authorize another round of chemo. Despite the sliver of hope the chemo would provide, we all knew what the decision had to be. Our answer was no.

I can still feel the impossibly complicated emotions flooding around me …. fear… despair….relief.   Relief that she would die.  In part, my relief was for her. She would be free again – free of pain and fear and all the restrictions of an earthbound life.  But in part, my relief was for me.  I, too, would be free … of hospitals and sickness and the terrible anxiety that came with watching my mom die while knowing I could not make her better.

And in that terrible moment of letting go, I desperately, wildly wanted her to stay. 

Say something, I’m giving up on you.

You're the one that I love...

And I'm saying good-bye.