Gone Beyond, by Adam Greenfield.
I’m feeling sort of jumbled about Grandma. It’s not as though this was even remotely unexpected, and when Mom called me at 8:30 in the morning — once I realized it was her — I knew exactly what she’d say. Grandma was 93, had very bad Parkinson’s, and was generally just very, very old. The last time I talked to her, it wasn’t her, and I did a lot of my mourning then, a couple of months ago.
I don’t know if I want to go to the funeral (Friday or Saturday), even if I could afford it, which is definitely in question. It’s the side of the family that I have this intense ambivalence about. Already, rumors of impending (ongoing?) fighting betwixt Mom’s sibs, not that that’s anything new. And that’s a big part of it…I kinda want to go and tell everybody to shut the hell up and start behaving like grownups. Not that I would, but oh do I want to.
And I feel guilty. Guilty for not expressing how much she meant to me, my gratitude for everything she did for us growing up.
Aw, hell. It’s not like I haven’t written pretty much all of this sh*t before. I’m just gonna quote myself from November 2003:
I?ve been incredibly shitty about staying in touch with all the people in my life that I supposedly care about. if you?re one of them, I?m sorry.
…and most of the time, her death doesn’t seem quite real, or even very important, which is a little unnerving, too.