Death

My other grandmother apparently passed away this week. So strained was my mother's relationship with her mother that it took several days for the news to actually reach us, despite the fact that my mother will likely be the one doing all the arrangements and lawyer visits and such. The whole scenario bothers me, possibly more than when my father's mother passed away a few years ago -- at least in that scenario there was a family connection there.

I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of why my mother doesn't like her mother -- I know her side of the story, at least some of it, and know that my father's relationship with his mother was much better and that at least when she passed on, she would have lay on her deathbed knowing she left a strong family behind. I felt fairly horrible then, I only really saw her once or twice a year tops.

And in all honest that just happens to be the relationship level my brother and I were really raised with after we started closing in on puberty or so, I would guess. At that point, its very difficult to turn back, and even to this day I feel very little lingering attachment to my outside family. Hell, I don't feel that great of an attachment to my inside family. I find I'm often jealous of my friends whom, despite having to deal with more drama because of it, seem to have much more stable and caring support systems because of that.

The first time I really noticed the difference was when I started dating Nicky (that's right, can't have a blog post without mentioning her, can I? Of course not). She would tell me how much her mother was asking about what she was doing and what I was like and her and her father couldn't wait to meet the boy who finally caught her daughter's interest after never really getting involved before. I was scared shitless naturally, born and raised on a lifetime worth of sitcoms that warned me that your initial meeting with her parents is an experience you should approach with something akin to abject terror, and even got so nervous that I made myself sick and cancelled our first dinner together. When I had quit my job, Nicky told me her mother was concerned but I took it to mean her parents were judging me, and for awhile I was really leery of being around her family.

"Oh there's my daughter's deadbeat boyfriend, could you guys go elsewhere? Thanks."

Obviously that never happened but it sure felt like it. All in my head, as usual. I'm digressing. It wasn't until much later that I realized exactly how nice they really were and how I had effectively screwed up that relationship by being so negative about it. In retrospect I surely didn't know any better; after all, it wasn't as if I had dealt with family that often. One could look no further than holidays to realize the differences between us: I had spent the past few years trying to dodge holiday dinners while she was expected to visit two or three houses on major holidays.

Why am I even talking about her? Oh, because I was getting to something or another. Recently, some good friends lost a grandparent they deeply cared about and I was amazed by the way the siblings had banded together and worked through issues with the rest of their family; by the number of people there at funeral, and the way they all held each other up afterwards. Why was I deprived of this? A part of me wishes for it, and a part of me is more like my mother: the less people that interfere in my life, the better.

That being said, I know her way isn't the way to life too. Nothing changes when you sit alone; this bout of unemployment probably furthers that. I've done nothing but feel sorry for myself and play video games, and likely thats all I'll do for awhile because I'm afraid of the world or change or whatever, I don't know.

Way off topic now.

A few years ago, probably while I was with Nicky and working in the mall still, my grandmother entered my store. We talked a little bit, not long, and she told me about how she had leukemia (I think thats what it was, its been so long). Knowing full well she had borrowed large sums of money from my mother and never returned it, I had expected to feel angry and not care but was a bit surprised that the sort of sadness in her eyes having not been part of our lives for so long was there. Mom, of course, was not thrilled at all and warned me to be careful of her. I never saw her again.

And like anyone dealing with the aftermath of a death in the family I'm hating that choice. I was too weak to risk my mother's ire, probably because I lived with her and still do and did not want to rock the boat, and meanwhile this woman went to her deathbed knowing her daughter was avoiding her calls and her grandchildren didn't care about her. And my mother simply doesn't seem to care that much; she seems to view this more as an inconvenience than something she's sad about. Any time I've broached the subject before there seemed to be little desire to ever bother mending the fence.

I wonder if its shock.

Or if she simply moved on and it isn't that big of a deal.

I have to think too that somewhere, in the back of her head she sees the scenario a bit like I see it: a solemn kick in the nuts that life is cold, short, and unfair, and there's very little you can do to change it. Because now that both my grandmothers are dead, I'm reminded that in a time, quite possibly a time not so far from now, I'll be facing the same scenario. My mother or father will be gone, and I will be responsible for at least some of what happens to them and their estate, and that when they die it will be another reminder that my time on the planet is running far thinner than I wish it and my life will seem even more worse and hopeless because of it.

And I'm left wondering what the point of it is still. Which is where I've been stuck for awhile, I think. I want to live, and I want to be happy and have a job that doesn't make me feel like I'm worthless. I want to be married, maybe even have children, and experience the drama that comes with it.

In the end though there's just me. There's always been just me, and I'm not sure after all these years there will be any way to incorporate anyone else anymore.

Fuck, even now this is just selfish indulgence on my part I guess. Me, me, me, how it affects me, how I can whine about something else. Frustrating.