Aunt Sandy Died, and I Kind of Care

[enthymeme]

This morning, Beth called to tell me that Aunt Sandy died. It seems like she had developed varices (like Dad had with his liver failure), burst one, and bled to death.

Aunt Sandy wasn't very nice to some of us, as I mentioned in a related blog. But I guess with her absence now, I feel a couple of things. First, I'm sad that after 20 years of my

Comments

[ladyofmusic]

my condolences.

[anonymous]

Some of my earliest memories are about my maternal grandmother, and many of them are about her death, when I was 4 and she was only 53.
That death was ENTIRELY due to smoking.

Addiction is, arguably, the worst way to lose someone --- because from the outside, they seem to be choosing to die. I know that's an oversimplification, but it made me a very angry little boy.

The feelings are beyond morality. They are biologically hard-wired. Just as our biology makes us seek pleasure and avoid pain --- for good reasons of eating and reproduction --- it isn't perfect, and makes us seek out things that we happen to discover that aren't good for us. And we get angry when others do things to us that hurt us, even when we know their choice in the matter is somehow compromised.

You're right --- the feelings don't "speak well or ill" of you. They are what they are