Rocío Dusek doesn’t want to hold on to him.
Her son, Thiago Joel Franco, is a young Argentine man who is currently hospitalized at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. It all began with a crash that left him with lasting injuries and led him to intensive care. Since then, this family’s life has been a succession of treatments, waiting rooms, and medical appointments that never quite close the wound.
That’s why she wrote. Not to ask for help or explain diagnoses: she wrote to put into words something many mothers know and few dare to say out loud. That love, sometimes, isn’t about holding on. It’s about letting go of the fear of loss so as not to turn love into a chain that also hurts the person you love.
In every line of her letter is a mother who chooses her son’s well-being over her own fear. And that, told without embellishment, is what made it go viral.
Here’s the letter:
“There comes a moment in life when a mother understands that loving does not always mean continuing to seek improvement, continuing to fight the inevitable, or clinging with all her strength.
Sometimes, loving deeply means no longer asking our son’s body to keep fighting when he is already tired. And that’s where the most painful part begins: understanding that perhaps it’s no longer about curing him, but about being there for him, easing his pain, holding him, and giving him all the love possible. To be by his side, hold his hand, remind him how much we love him, and make him feel that he is not alone.
I don’t want to be selfish. I swear I don’t want to be; I don’t want to hold on to you because of my fear of losing you if that means prolonging your suffering. It has been, and still is, learning to love you through letting go, even though it tears my soul apart.
If my love could decide for you, it would choose for you not to feel any more pain. And if one day my love has to learn to let you go, I want you to know that I will do it with my heart shattered, but with the certainty that we fought together until the very last moment; and with the pride of being your mom, the mother of a super warrior in life. I have loved you and love you more than my own life. ❤️🩹”