On Grief and Joy in December

On Grief and Joy:

December reminds me of the bright stars in my world that have suddenly gone out, somewhat blinding me in the supernova flash. My Father. My dearest Uncle Moon. Time passes, and the ache to share something with their physical presence, it doesn’t leave me. I am not sure I need for an absence of, or to adjust, the ache. I want to remember them. I want to remember the wild dance we had here in this realm… the movements that initiated growth of muscle, bone, idea, story, dreaming.

My relationships with these two men were contrasting, as they were bound to be. Biological relationship adds complexity, and my Uncle married my dear Aunt Patricia (albeit before I entered the scene). Both men have been in my world from the beginning. Both died with illness in December, 2006, and 2016.

My father, among many experiences, drove me. He taught me to use my critical thinking, to put all my eggs in the basket of my intellect, to gather and investigate the evidence. I used to feel like this was a mistake, as I am clearly a sensitive, neurodivergent, and empathic/compassionate dancer and mover and lover of a human, and presented this way from go. I feel like I may have scared him with my wildness…I would stir the environment like a storm, with little effort on my part, and all the pieces of the known world would be strewn about. This wasn’t anger, it was the big grief I seemed to enter the world carrying, my sense of justice meeting injustice. That has never waned, though I have certainly learned to be more focal in my delivery, more collaborative, more vulnerable, far less judgmental. I have transmuted the grief into big joy.

I spent a lot of my life feeling that my father hurt me in the way he would drive me, and now, I see that he probably saved my life. If he hadn’t given me some way of directing the storm, I most likely would have destroyed myself, and hurt a great deal more folk than I know I have. (Parenting…what a truly thankless job 🙂 ). On this day, I recognize that he helped me survive in this wild world . He helped me thrive in chaos. He helped me to be discerning, he gave me contrast, so that I could find my direction. I feel like he fathered a storm, a baby witch, as well as one could do so. He drove me in the direction of leadership, and often there is a lonely walk in that terrain. At this point in my life, I am in extraordinary, glorious, fierce and phenomenal company in my family and core circle.

Thank you, Dad.

My Uncle Moon…oh dear. I well up, tears from the deepest parts of my heart, just thinking of his smile, his voice, his very bushy eyebrows.

All the ways I needed to be seen, Moon saw me.

He could take the piss with the best of them.

He was so smart it behooved me to stop and sit and listen very closely. Greater than this was his emotional intelligence, his sensitivity.

Moon’s heart was so massive, I never doubted his love of me for a second. I saw his love for his family in every word. He spoke so lovingly of them, I learned to speak lovingly of those I love in that way… with a little smile, with big feelings, with colour and texture, humour and kindness. I learned to value hearing folk speak to me of their loved ones in that way, like they are conspiring on an impossibly beautiful love story. I felt like his love could move anything. I am not sure he knew that about himself. Among other things, I wish I could have told him exactly this when he was alive.

And we don’t get to share in the same way past the moment of departure.

It doesn’t mean we don’t get to share it to their spirits, or to the Earth, or like here, with all of you…we do get to share it.

And, yet, it is so different to look in the eyes of our beloveds and to speak our love to their spirits in form. Because when we do, we are saying that we love them even in all the places they feel unloveable. Our animus, the living structure of grief meeting love, crashing the gate of the present moment in a million messy ways…and hopefully some tender and grace-filled ways.

My Dad was the sun in my sky. Though my skin was often blistering or covered in goose flesh, I see clearly how I learned to chop the wood and stoke the hearth accordingly. My Uncle Moon was so well named, he brought the mystery, the delight, the sense that I could count on his light to illuminate a dark place, such that I learned to walk delighting in the shadows.

And with my two fathers of light, I am one whole Dawn.

Dad, Moon, I love you completely. Especially in all the places you may have felt unloveable. Thank you for crashing the gate of my present moment in a million messy ways, and with tenderness and grace.