Dancin with Nancy

No one ever teaches you how to grieve. People spend lifetimes telling other people how to live and how to be but no one ever actively says "No, this is how you grieve." Because really we all have to do it our own way.I've spent a year with grief on a daily basis, on a level I'm fairly certain isn't healthy and these last few months I've been slowly coming away from it and it feels goddamned great and strange at the same time. I missed my Aunt long before she died but I don't think we know what its really like to miss someone until theres a hole in your heart that they used to fill. The details of her death weren't simple and easily packaged , the behaviour of her husband wasn't that of the poor grieving husband - more like that of the raging junky addict who hit the jackpot but blew it long before the body was even cold, But the fact remains she's dead. He's miraculously still living and I can choose to carry all of this with me or I can let it go and try with everything I have to do the forgiveness thing. How do you forgive the devil? Do you kill him in your mind? Do you just pretend it never happened? How do you do that when the hole is still there to remind you it did. There is so much more to forgiving this kind of hurt than just letting go of it. Or is there.
I've been crying less and dancing more and more and more and there's a few reasons for this but I have to believe she is contributing to all of these and while I know she is never coming back to this home. I know she is home. I know she is dancing and I know the only thing that was keeping me from dancin was the weight of hating her husband. While that weight is lifting it is all but dissipated and now to break free of that there is this choice, this chore of forgiveness and to do that I need to try to let go and keep it movin. I've got big plans and a bright future and no time or energy to hate someone for something that just won't change. Fuck if that ain't easier said than done but a year is long enough for me to hold to something so painful as loss. I'd rather dance, feet, heart, spirit and head light, I'd rather smile and laugh and dance and love.
My Aunt Nancy was one in a million but isn't that what everyone thinks about the people they love? She really was though and she laughed and loved and danced and she did it all kinda heavy with the crap she carried with her. I don't want to be heavy like that but I do want to be strong like that. Life is too short, too precious and too important to waste holdin on to the sad parts. Give me the joy and the memories and season it with sadness so I remember to appreciate the better days. I don't need to carry the heavy shit, it'll stay right where I leave it. As long as I keep moving and groovin everything will work itself out.

~ Got no time for spreadin roots
The time has come to be gone
and though I healthily drank
a thousand times
Its time to ramble on...