holiday blues

out here sometimes, and i don't mean my spiritual orbit, but just out here where my thoughts tend to reside, its hard to connect to the rest of the world at times...it's hard, because what i end up feeling is that time has gone by, details have been put in place, there's no forgetting, regardless of my level of forgiveness, and i'll be damned if i put myself in a position to be disappointed or hurt again.  at least, not arbitrarily or indifferently.  if one is going to hurt me, one needs to work at getting that hurt across to me.  that way, i know i'm on point with whatever resolution i have to enact.  but sometimes, there's nothing more i can do.  sometimes, i realize how fucking wrong i was, how the resentments don't do a damn bit of good and in the end, you still have to deal with the ones who hurt you, even if it's just at the end of their journey...or at the end of yours.
my Aunt Rose died today.
my father is now minus a mother, a father and his only sister.  the household of his youth is gone, he's the last one.  as i think of how big this is, how horrible it is even though his father lived into his nineties, his mother into her eighties i'm certain, and his sister had to be in her seventies, it is a very sad thing.  i've not seen my aunt in a long time.  i've withdrawn for the most part from my family since my grandfather, my dad's dad, died.  i have found that i can see the worst in me, and i can see the worst in people, and i've been tired of dealing with it, so i stopped.  but you can't get away from it.  my aunt was a good person.  she stung me a long time ago, but it wasn't so traumatic that there was no getting past it.  when i was younger, no matter what the occasion, when i'd see her she'd give me money.  it was strange, but she just did.   my aunt was a smiling woman, a happy woman.  she contracted dementia, lost her memory, lost her identity.  the strain upon my cousin, her only daughter, has been incredible.  but the thing is, you think things will last forever.  or, more accurately, if you don't work with the dying you try not to focus on death.  i guess that's more accurate.  and when it comes, and you knew it was coming, you feel bad for what you didn't share, what you didn't give, what you didn't say.  i don't know.  it's all just so sad.  no one left but my dad, who is afraid of dying to the point of becoming a hypochondriac.  i can't imagine what this is going to do to him.  but when i asked if he was okay, for the first time he said, 'i don't know'.  that's bad, for him.
i am going to try to be there this week.  for my dad, for my family.  i'm no hypocrite.  i wasn't there to help with my aunt so i expect to not give false commiseration now.  i will look after my own father and mother more closely.  maybe i'll be the first to go.  you never know.  nothing is promised.  my mother has lost both parents as well, and one sister.  but my uncle Tommy has parkinson's very bad, they're all getting old, the health problems are mounting.  no one gets out alive.
this has been a melancholy day to extremes.  i wish i could just fold it up, put it on the floor and leave it there, but i have things to do, and things to prepare for tomorrow.  not going to be a happpy christmas for the kids.  but, life will go on.  i am thankful to my Father that my aunt is no longer suffering here in this reality.  that's all i've got today.