An Awkward Subject
To any of the improbable people who were concerned about me because of my extended hiatus from writing in my journal: don't worry, I'm as healthy and prosperous as ever. Worried that getting sucked into writing my usual magna opera here would consume time better spent on more productive tasks, I avoided starting any entries, which eventually led to me falling out of the habit of writing altogether. Mea culpa. A family crisis during the last two weeks didn't help either. But I'm now back in the saddle, as it were, and as the languid summer wanes and the rigours of the fall begin, I expect an abundant harvest of fodder for my pages here, be it ever so bite-sized.
Anyway, as I've written above, my family and I have recently gone through a brief crisis--specifically, my grandfather on my father's side of the family was discovered to have pancreatic cancer, and very soon after this he suddenly fell gravely ill and died in hospital. Whilst my parents had noticed in the last six months that he'd lost a lot of weight and was at one point even jaundiced, none of us suspected that his signs and symptoms were of a disease so lethal, nor did any of us expect his death to come so rapidly. Apparently the malignancy in his pancreas had metastasised to his lungs, which then couldn't deliver enough oxygen to his brain and other organs, causing him to inevitably lose consciousness and ultimately die. Naturally the news that he had but a few days to live after he was admitted to hospital for a seizure came as a great shock to the family. When his pancreatic tumour was diagnosed we were told that he would probably survive from six months to a year, but not even three days after that he was on his deathbed.
We received the fated phone call from Rouge Valley Centenary Health Centre in the small hours of Wednesday, August 17, and on Monday this week we had the funeral service and interment. (This is the reason I showed up at Branwyn's birthday party wearing formal clothes; I needed appropriate attire for the funeral and had bought those clothes just a few hours earlier.) I have to admit that although I paid the proper respect to him by being in attendance for the visitation and the funeral, I didn't feel the pangs of grief that brought some of the other mourners to tears in the chapel and at the graveside. Just a peculiar, impassive feeling that one might experience in looking upon a landscape that was once familiar but is now changed. After having a row with my grandfather in 1999 and studiously avoiding him thereafter, I had become estranged from him, although in retrospect I think I didn't have much attachment to him even before that. As the very few people who have known both him and me might attest, we were very different from each other in very significant ways, and these differences made truly relating to each other virtually impossible (not that most people could easily relate to my grandfather).
Although my parents, my sibling, and my paternal uncles, aunts and cousins also thought he was very trying, I think they still maintained an emotional bond with him, unlike me. After all, I watched with dry eyes as most of them wept (in however subdued a manner) as the casket was lowered into the grave, and this contrast between their reactions and mine slightly disconcerts me, even days after the funeral. You see, my grandparents on my mother's side are now quite elderly, about the same age as my grandparents on my father's side were when they died. I've heard that neither of them is in quite as fragile a state as my paternal grandparents were before they died, but at their ages it's certainly possible that either of them could pass away as suddenly as my late grandfather did. Now, I certainly don't balk at seeing them as I did my paternal grandfather, but because talking to them is now so awkward, and because I see them so infrequently, I feel that I'm now not very close to them either. How will I deal with it if one of them happens to die in the near future? How would I deal with and come across to my mother, who would doubtlessly be overcome with emotion, being the sort of person that I know her to be? I love my mother, I wouldn't want to come across to her as unfeeling at such a juncture, but how decently could I act if I didn't feel the same profound personal loss? I dread hearing the start of any mention by my mother of my almost 98-year-old maternal grandfather because of this fear.
Anyway, as I've written above, my family and I have recently gone through a brief crisis--specifically, my grandfather on my father's side of the family was discovered to have pancreatic cancer, and very soon after this he suddenly fell gravely ill and died in hospital. Whilst my parents had noticed in the last six months that he'd lost a lot of weight and was at one point even jaundiced, none of us suspected that his signs and symptoms were of a disease so lethal, nor did any of us expect his death to come so rapidly. Apparently the malignancy in his pancreas had metastasised to his lungs, which then couldn't deliver enough oxygen to his brain and other organs, causing him to inevitably lose consciousness and ultimately die. Naturally the news that he had but a few days to live after he was admitted to hospital for a seizure came as a great shock to the family. When his pancreatic tumour was diagnosed we were told that he would probably survive from six months to a year, but not even three days after that he was on his deathbed.
We received the fated phone call from Rouge Valley Centenary Health Centre in the small hours of Wednesday, August 17, and on Monday this week we had the funeral service and interment. (This is the reason I showed up at Branwyn's birthday party wearing formal clothes; I needed appropriate attire for the funeral and had bought those clothes just a few hours earlier.) I have to admit that although I paid the proper respect to him by being in attendance for the visitation and the funeral, I didn't feel the pangs of grief that brought some of the other mourners to tears in the chapel and at the graveside. Just a peculiar, impassive feeling that one might experience in looking upon a landscape that was once familiar but is now changed. After having a row with my grandfather in 1999 and studiously avoiding him thereafter, I had become estranged from him, although in retrospect I think I didn't have much attachment to him even before that. As the very few people who have known both him and me might attest, we were very different from each other in very significant ways, and these differences made truly relating to each other virtually impossible (not that most people could easily relate to my grandfather).
Although my parents, my sibling, and my paternal uncles, aunts and cousins also thought he was very trying, I think they still maintained an emotional bond with him, unlike me. After all, I watched with dry eyes as most of them wept (in however subdued a manner) as the casket was lowered into the grave, and this contrast between their reactions and mine slightly disconcerts me, even days after the funeral. You see, my grandparents on my mother's side are now quite elderly, about the same age as my grandparents on my father's side were when they died. I've heard that neither of them is in quite as fragile a state as my paternal grandparents were before they died, but at their ages it's certainly possible that either of them could pass away as suddenly as my late grandfather did. Now, I certainly don't balk at seeing them as I did my paternal grandfather, but because talking to them is now so awkward, and because I see them so infrequently, I feel that I'm now not very close to them either. How will I deal with it if one of them happens to die in the near future? How would I deal with and come across to my mother, who would doubtlessly be overcome with emotion, being the sort of person that I know her to be? I love my mother, I wouldn't want to come across to her as unfeeling at such a juncture, but how decently could I act if I didn't feel the same profound personal loss? I dread hearing the start of any mention by my mother of my almost 98-year-old maternal grandfather because of this fear.