When grief met me, I tried to take it by the hand and dance.
Last year, on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, my Aunt Susie died. She had cancer.
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She died at home. Her last days were round-the-clock care by family, with support from hospice. We all knew it was coming, but it still came as a surprise. We thought she had a few more days. We thought we had a few more days, with her.
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I got the news beneath Market Street, as I was exiting the Civic Center BART station at 7th Street. I was on my way to dance class when my dad called.
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His voice was heavy and graveled with emotion. I realized then that the hardest part for me wasn’t losing my aunt, but the fact of my dad losing his little sister. I hung up the phone and started to cry as I walked up the stairs.
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I felt untethered and useless. I thought about going home, but didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t feel ok to drive down to be with my dad and cousins, and wasn’t sure what I would do when I got there anyway. So I went to dance class.
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I talked to my teacher.
“I’m going through some. . . family stuff right now. Just so you know. I might cry.”
“That’s ok,” she said and smiled. “You just do what you have to do.”
She was warm and accepting, which was one of the reasons her class was my favorite.
I always felt safe there.
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My body moved through the warm up, drills, and exercises. It felt good to move, and good to focus my attention on something physical. It felt like stretching an ache, moving this strange, new feeling of loss and grief through my body. And it kept the emotions from building up and coming out in messy spasms.
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It was during the choreography at the end that I felt my heart swell, throat tighten, and tears come out of my eyes. A wave of emotion would move through me, and I could ride it for a bit but then it landed me back down and I’d stand at the back of the room, folded over and crying quietly. My hair covered my face, giving me some privacy.
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Then, I’d take a deep breath and take my place again. I tried to bring the emotion to the dance, infusing my movement with the feelings in my body and heart. Giving the emotion room, giving it a shape and a trajectory. Not hanging on to it, not suppressing it, not avoiding it. But dancing with it, and through it.
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Dance is evidence of being vibrantly alive. Dancing with my Aunt Sue in my mind and heart felt like a way of honoring her and connecting with her.
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Since then I’ve thought a lot about death and dying, and about life and living. I think that life is characterized by movement: by our internal rhythms of breath and heartbeat. We are a symphony of life. Movement is sacred, the very essence of living.
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There is more I want to say about all of that, but for now, it is enough for me to rest here.
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This is the song we danced to that night:
My bones are shifting in my skin,
And you, my love, are gone.
