I know you’ve seen the video, everyone has. It’s been emailed and remailed, Facebooked and Twittered, blogged and Gathered, clogging cyberspace with the message: Let It Be. At first I thought that perhaps this was the answer to my confusion over the death of my mate of thirty-four years. Just go on with my life and let it be. Forget my grief. Forget the pain of losing him. Forget trying to make sense of it all. Just . . . let it be.
My second thought as I continued watching this very looooong and repetitive song (Sheesh! What was Paul McCartney thinking when he wrote it? Not much, apparently) was how my mate would have enjoyed seeing all those faces as they are today. We have so many of them in his movie collection, and they are always that age, the one they’d reached when they made that particular movie (such as a much younger Sherilyn Fenn in The Don’s Analyst or a very young and fit Steve Guttenberg in Surrender).
My third thought was let what be what? And that’s where the thoughts stalled — in a semantics word jam.
I finished watching the video, thinking nothing, just watching the parade of faces, but now I’m wondering if Let it Be is really a philosophy I want to embrace. It seems too accepting of life’s vagaries and not enough of . . . well, embracing.
The whole purpose of going through grief is to process the pain and the loss, to mend your shattered life and heart so that one day you can embrace life in its entirety once again. I haven’t dealt with all these months of tears, anger, frustration, emptiness, loneliness, pain, just to spend the rest of my life letting it be. I want to let it be me — the one who’s strong enough not to have to simply let it be.
Bertram's Blog 
December 6, 2010 at 9:19 am
I agree with you, Pat. Blessings…
December 7, 2010 at 8:22 pm
When we were kids and we’d go on a date to the local drive-in, Let It Be lasted exactly the length of the interlude. It was great. As soon as the song was over it was back to the movie!
Great song, but more importantly it was the beginning of great change in my life. I was young, happy, and convinced I was destined to live a full happy productive life. The age of innocence.
I’m no expert but I think Let It Be is one of the great songs because if signifies moving on. Sometimes it’s moving on through success and happiness that you know can’t last, and other times it’s about moving on through tragedy. Either way it’s about survival.
December 8, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Survival, yep. We’re still here, by gum! And getting stronger every day. Even if I could recapture some of that innocence, I wouldn’t want to — the awakening is too painful. Better to be wise than naive.
December 10, 2010 at 6:33 am
There always seems to be a moment of pure release that just comes on its own. You mind goes “OK” and then just lets it go. However, there doesn’t seem to be much you can do to actually provoke this into happening…at least in my experience.
I think if I could figure out how to call up that release on demand, I don’t there’d be anything else I’d ever need to know.
December 10, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Oddly enough, despite my disclaimers to the contrary, I think I had my moment when I heard the song and wondered if letting it be was the answer. My second think, of course, took me off track, but I have not felt the same since then. As if I let go of something. If so, it came from the realization that it was not for me to make sense of his life and his death.
December 10, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Some song lyrics in combination with the melodies capture our attention and run through our heads endlessly. Like poems, some have deep meaning, while others don’t, which apparently is the case with “Let It Be”.
“In an interview, Paul says where the song came from. When the band was in hard times during the Get Back sessions, Paul had a dream in which his deceased mother [her name was Mary] came to him and told him that everything would be okay. “In the dream she said, ‘It’ll be alright.’ I’m not sure if she used the words ‘Let it be’ but that was the gist of her advice, it was ‘Don’t worry too much, it will turn out okay.”
It’s just a song, Pat, but even then, I like to think those words, “There will be an answer,” also reinforce the hope that one day we will understand the reasons behind some of the pain and sorrow of this life. There isn’t much point in looking for answers now because nobody has them but I’m assured that God knows what they are. That’s why we can say, “Let It Be” — we trust God and let it go. (Easier said than done, I know.)
December 10, 2010 at 9:45 pm
So it was his mother Mary! I always wondered about that.
December 11, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Let It Be, to me this song meant let it be for everything that dwelled in your mind and wouldn’t let go. You have to Let It Be.
Pat, I’m sorry for your loss. I hope those 34 years were good ones, and if they were they’ll always be with you, and so will he.
December 11, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Thank you, Sandy. We were together for all those years, and that is what is important.