“The dance of life finds its beginnings in grief … Here a completely new way of living is revealed. It is the way in which pain can be embraced, not out of a desire to suffer, but in the knowledge that something new will be born in the pain.”

— Henry Nouwen

There are some things you never fully get over the loss of: a child, a person you truly love and trust.

The phrase, “It takes time,” is a partial truth. Time does, in a sense allow for loss, but like shoes, it either remains hard and empty in the closet or is slipped on and walked in each day until you find an acceptable level of comfort.

The goodness is attained by the ability to bear and release the weight rather than to keep the emptiness in perpetual vacancy.

I’ve come to realize grief is exactly like weight … it isn’t about losing it but releasing it. If you don’t, it will continue to come back to hold you down and stop you from being available to the present moment.

For grief is the emotion of loss: it is longing for what you once had, not for what you have right now.

Therefore, it is in the letting go of emotional pain you leave yourself exposed. You allow yourself to be open to the possibility of it happening again and that is scary. What can possibly be more frightening than vulnerability?

Why, the answer is: the immutable stasis of paralyzing emptiness. A needing always to be fed but never being filled. That is the choice you make when you stay in the past, when you keep that weight as the protective armor it is against any possibility of pain or loss of trust ever happening to you again. It is the choice to stay empty.

Is there a parallel to be drawn to our empty buildings in our towns as well? Could it be the grief over the death of our tight-knit communities that leaves our store fronts barren, buried in the weight of nostalgia? Or is the hollowness caused by the loss of our children to far away places offering opportunity?

Perhaps the depletion and despair of our downtowns stem from a lack of trust, both in the merchant and the customer. The merchant fears they will not support me for the mall seems greener grass. The customer rationalizes my patronage won’t make a difference.

Can it really be so simple and complex? Is the answer to revitalization an emotional one rather than simply monetary? We talk about being broke, when in fact, it is more about being broken. And the emptiness just perpetuates in vacuous brick and mortar stomachs longing to be filled, ever hungry.

You see, the wishing for the past is nothing more than a treasured glass slipper kept on a pedestal in our closets; empty and unable to bear the weight of modern society. There is no good in this kind of grief. We must be willing to wear it, to bear it, to let it go, to embrace raw openness and vulnerability. We must be willing to dance our communities into a new way of living. We must take chances.

We must embrace each other and grasp for what’s right in front of us. Not to try, to stay stuck in our grief, in the past, is the greatest pain of all.

Are you willing to see the good grief? Are you willing to dance in the now? To trust, to love, to live in joy by actually putting on the shoes of human connection that will walk us home?

If you’d like more information on how to help grow our communities, please come to the next community potluck at Turtle Lodge, resuming in April, details coming. You can like and find Cass Can Community on Facebook.

CeeCee Wilson, is the organizer of Cass Can Community and the writer/photographer of Quirky Bella.