Some people only walk with us part of the way

There was a time when I thought former lovers were people we had to forget.

Forget a name.

Forget a face.

Forget a road.

Forget the evenings we sat beside each other, talking about a future we both believed would come true.

The older I get, the more I realize I was wrong.

There are people we do not need to forget.

Because they were once a very real part of our lives.

And how can we forget what was real?

I spent some of my youth in Đà Lạt.

In those days, I was young, full of dreams, still believing that if I tried hard enough, life would surely reward me fairly.

I went to work.

I earned money.

I made coffee.

I met friends, colleagues, people who came into my life and passed through it.

Some would later become family.

Some remain only in a few old photographs.

And then there are those whose memories open a door the moment I happen to hear an old song or pass a familiar road.

Without a sound.

Without warning.

Memory steps in so softly.

Like a cold Đà Lạt breeze slipping beneath my collar all those years ago.

I stand there.

Alone.

And suddenly remember.

When I was young, I thought a love had to last to the very end to be beautiful.

Only later did I understand that not every love that ends is a love that failed.

Some people come to love us.

Some come to teach us how to love.

Some come to walk beside us for part of the way.

Then one day, the road divides.

One person keeps walking.

So does the other.

Just no longer together.

That is all.

Life has encounters like that.

We meet somewhere in our youth.

When neither of us yet knows who we will become.

We laugh together.

Cry together.

Dream together of days far in the distance.

Then the years pass.

People change.

Dreams change.

Sometimes even we are no longer the people we were that day.

I used to think the hardest part of a breakup was losing someone.

No.

Perhaps the hardest part is losing a version of ourselves.

A version who once waited eagerly for a phone call.

Who missed someone so much that even a whole day felt too short.

Who once had someone to tell all the little things that did not really matter.

Someone who knew what made us happy.

Knew what made us sad.

Knew even the things we had never put into words.

Then one day, that person becomes a former love.

Two words that sound so light.

Yet behind them lies a whole stretch of a life.

Now I am a husband.

A father.

I have Bánh Mì sitting behind me on my wheelchair every morning.

There are days that begin with taking my child to school, then shopping, working, coming home, and bringing a long day to a close in my own home.

Life now holds very different joys.

A little voice calling “Dad.”

A small hand.

A meal.

A wife waiting for me to come home.

Things I once thought so ordinary, I now understand to be the most precious of all.

And it was only when I had a family of my own that I came to better understand the people who had passed through my youth.

I no longer think of them with the question:

“Why couldn't we be together back then?”

I think of them with a different question:

“If I hadn't met that person then, would I be who I am today?”

Perhaps not.

Because everyone we meet in life leaves something behind.

A lesson.

A wound.

A joy.

A way of seeing.

A little more maturity.

Some teach us how to love.

Some teach us what it means to hurt.

Some teach us how to forgive.

And some, after they leave, teach us how to be alone without being lonely.

I no longer blame the people who left my life.

Nor do I resent the things that never came to be.

Because the longer I live, the more I understand that life does not always give us what we want.

It gives us what we need.

Some doors close with terrible pain.

But if they did not close, perhaps we would never walk through another.

Some departures leave us deeply sad.

But if those people had not left, perhaps we would never have met the people beside us today.

And there are loves we once thought we could not live without.

Yet we go on living.

Not only living, but loving.

Still working.

Still building.

Still becoming fathers.

Still becoming someone new.

Until one day we look back and no longer wish to return.

We only want to say:

Thank you.

Thank you for coming into my life.

Thank you for loving me.

Thank you for walking beside me for part of the way.

And thank you, too, for leaving when you did, so that I could go on with my life.

I think that is the most beautiful way to speak of a former love.

Not with tears.

Not with regret.

Nor with a curse.

But with the calm of someone who has traveled far enough to understand:

Some people are not meant to stay beside us all our lives.

They come for a certain season.

Walk with us through that season.

Then return to their own path.

And we return to ours.

The season has passed.

But it was beautiful all the same.

And perhaps that is the most beautiful thing two people who once loved can leave each other:

No longer belonging to each other, yet still sincerely grateful that we once did.

Now, if I met a former love again, perhaps I would not ask:

“Did you still love me back then?”

Nor would I ask:

“If you could go back, would you choose me again?”

I would only want to smile.

Then ask a simple, everyday question:

“Have you been at peace lately?”

If she said:

“I'm doing well.”

Then perhaps I would smile too.

Because, in the end, loving someone does not have to mean being beside them.

Sometimes, to love someone one last time...

is to wish them peace, even when that peace no longer includes us.