Greater Noida (11/01/2026): I never knew how loud grief could be until it walked into my house like a sudden severe winter and sat – unyielding – by my father’s bedside. Everything narrowed to the rhythm of his breath, the volume of his shrieks, the weight of numbers on a page. At 79, he had lived a long life; still, the blood reports sounded like a funeral bell and my hands felt helplessly empty. I tried everything within and outside my reach. I prayed until my throat was raw. I cried my intestines out. And all the while a terror lived in me that if I didn’t step back, my life would be claimed by the grief before his.
That terror forced me into a strange work: I became a student of loss. I asked others when they had lost their parents, whether it had been sudden, how they had landed on the other side. I counted years like beads – was 79 a “good” age to go? The questions were awkward attempts to comfort myself. But the real, quiet work that saved me was not facts or comparisons. It was learning to loosen the knot I had tied so tightly to my father.
People talk about cutting the umbilical cord as if it were a single dramatic snip. For me it was a thousand tiny acts: letting one small worry go, breathing through a rising panic, reminding myself that love is not possession. I read about ‘detachment’ – not as coldness but as a gentle training of the heart to be present without drowning in what may come next. I practised staying exactly in the one moment I was in, forging a tiny bridge back to peace whenever my imagination tried to leap into the terrorizing future.
It surprised me how loving someone deeply and letting them go are not opposites. Each time I released an expectation – of endless time, of control – I felt my love grow more spacious. There was room then for gratitude: for his laughter, for the way he taught me fortitude, for the small ordinary things that had become sacred. Detachment taught me to hold memories like warm stones, not like anchors.
If there is a grace in all this, it is that…attachment pushed me to love harder, and letting go taught me how to love wiser. My father’s life and our parting have become a lesson in living fully: to hold without clinging, to remain without suffocating, and to trust that true love is brave enough to let go.
When I look at my own struggle between love and attachment, I find myself drawn to the life of Jesus. He loved intensely and personally – He ate with people, walked with them, cried for them, and yet He never held anyone back for His own comfort. In moments of deep pain, even He chose surrender: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” In my helplessness beside my father, I sense Jesus gently inviting me to love the same way – to care deeply without clinging, to stay present without demanding tomorrow, and to trust the Father even when my heart resists letting go. His life reassures me that love does not diminish when we release control; instead, it becomes purer, freer, and more faith-filled.
And so, as February 14, the day the world calls Valentine’s Day arrives, I pause with a deeper understanding of love. This season reminds me that love is not only about roses, chocolates, or words carefully wrapped in red. The truest form of love is the courage to stay present when it hurts, and the wisdom to loosen our grip when holding on becomes unbearable. This Valentine’s Day, my heart chooses a quieter celebration: to love deeply, without possession; to remain attached, yet free; and to trust that love, when it is real, it never ends – it simply changes its way of staying with us.
“Love deeply, hold gently — Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Sr. Rekha Punia, UMI
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