My Eyes Can Only Look At You

[phillip2637]

I learned today that a relative who used to be very important to me died on Saturday. The fact that the news took four days to reach me says everything about my family and how the remains of it interact with each other. She was my Aunt and, with my Grandmother, essentially raised me when I was a child. At some point, she came to realize that very few people could tolerate being in the same room with her second husband. The showing at his funeral, fourteen years ago, was sparse and she reacted by withdrawing from contact with just about everyone she knew at the time. Even before that, her reaction to me moving from a small town to Toronto was increased emotional distance...I'd become one of *those* people.

I'll miss the Phyllis I knew when I was eight years old but that's a continuation; I've been missing her for decades. The saddest thing about today's news is that it should have been sadder.