People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad. ~Marcel Proust
I just received a call from my mother saying that my grandmother has just passed. Strangely enough, I'm numb. I'm not sad, or broken hearted at all. I'm angry. Why does this keep happening to my family? Haven't we suffered enough tragedy to last several lifetimes? In a way this is an anticlimactic end to four years of waiting. Its been one close call after another and its almost a relief to have it end. I feel like such a shit thinking this but its true. I didn't go to the hospital. I refuse to go and wait for another member of my family to die. I've done it too many times and I absolutely will not do it EVER again. I feel so numb...what is wrong with me? I should be torn up with grief and I'm not. What kind of cold-hearted bitch have I become? Is it shock? Will it hit me unexpectedly in a day or two? I can't feel my heart beating...is it because its dead? There is no ache, no piercing pain....THAT I'm familiar with. Its what I felt when my granddad died twenty-two years ago. Its what I still feel when I think of him, even after all these years. I felt it when my uncles and aunts died, when my cousins died, when my friends and surrogate parents died....and yet....I feel nothing for my grandmother. I felt nothing for my brother's unborn child. I'm completely and totally devoid of feeling.
My grandmother wasn't the cookie-baking, rosy cheeked grandma of Norman Rockwell paintings. She was a snake-killing, ass-kicking, curse-spitting ornery old lady. She boxed our ears, took green limb switches to us behind the house, and smacked us across the head when we acted up. She didn't shower us with hugs and kisses, we hugged and kissed her hello and goodbye and that was it. We were made to hang out the laundry when we were around, work the snow cone stand, mow the lawn and clean the yard. We knew she loved us but she was a woman who grew up in a time when children worked the land and field alongside the adults. We weren't coddled or sheltered. We were given a childhood where we knew who we could trust and depend upon...our family. If we had NOTHING else but our family we knew we were rich beyond measure. My childhood wasn't all gumdrops and lollipops, but it was rich in character.
I don't know. I guess in a way, my grandma died ages ago when her spirit died. The woman who passed today was only a pale shadow of the woman who was. I said my goodbyes and made my peace with her passing a long time ago. Now its time to bury the shell that was left behind. MY grandma died....a small piece of her buried with each of the children she buried. Three infants that passed before their first year, 2 daughters and 2 sons taken in their prime. I feel she probably couldn't handle another child dying before her and with my aunt so close herself....my grandma may have let go of life before death could take from her another beloved daughter. I guess that's a curse of large families. You have lots of love and happiness but you also bear lots of sorrow and death. Its the natural order of things I suppose, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.
I've known too much death in my lifetime. I'm tired of losing my loved ones. Maybe its a blessing to be numb. I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. I should just learn to accept the little blessings.
Maria de Jesus Recio y Rodriguez
September 15, 1927 - May 9, 2010
I love you Grandma Sue and will miss you always.
Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. ~Albert Einstein
