Letting Go

Can your love for a person be measured by your willingness to let that person go for the sake of his/her well being and happiness? I thought about that while watching the movie, My Sister's Keeper, which by the way is an incredibly beautiful and touching  film. The plot is what got me thinking about that question. Anna is an 11- year old girl who was conceived by in vitro fertilization to donate blood, bone marrow and eventually a kidney to her older sister, Kate who suffers from a rare form of leukemia. As the film builds up momentum and Kate reaches her sickest point, Anna goes to a lawyer to seek medical emancipation from her parents so that they cannot force her to donate her kidney to her sister. She claims to want control of her own body. But the twist is that Kate asks her to do all of that because she knows will die anyway even with the surgery but their mother, Sara, refuses to acknowledge. Sara does everything she can to keep Kate alive but she cannot grant Kate her only wish; to let her go. And although at times in the film Sara is portrayed as a stubborn woman who believes she knows what's best and doesn't listen to anyone else even if their advice is in Kate's best interest. She freaks out when Kate asks to leave the hospital to go to the beach for a few hours. But Sara isn't an inconsiderate person. She does all of that out of love. She loves her daughter too much to be able to fathom what life would be like without her. That's why she can't let her go. She has to make sure Kate gets a kidney transplant because she has to know that she did everything she could, that she went to the last possible resort to ensure that Kate lived. Letting her go would admit failure and powerlessness. And the pain of losing her would be unbearable. But that made me think. What about Kate's pain?  She spent almost her entire life, almost all 15 years of it, fighting cancer. Going through ups and downs and never getting the chance to live a normal life. Why did she have to keep fighting if she knew this was the end for her? Was Sara selfish because she didn't want to let Kate go? Or can we say she just loved her too much? But then again we've all heard that cliche saying "If you love something let it go." If Kate felt she was dying and nothing could save her should Sara have just let her die peacefully without making her body fight to live? Because after all if you love something you have to let it go when it's time for it go. So then we can say that Sara was selfish. She wanted Kate to live because she knew how miserable life would be without her. A part of her would die too. Because when you let something you love go a part of you goes with it. And that part might never come back. I don't the clear cut answer to all of this. The same question could be applied to so many other situations in life. In a relationship if one person is unhappy and you truly love that person will you let him/her go even if that means you'll be miserable? Or do you do everything you can to try to make that person stay for the sake of your own happiness as selfish as it may be?

 It's tricky when it comes to love. Do you fight or let go?