First of all Doobie Brothers, all of you, it is "all right" and not "alright." Alright is not all right. So next time you try to praise the lord and deem him acceptable, remember your grammar.
I am, regrettably, not here to talk about the Doobie Brothers, their artistic merits, or even the wonderful Jesus Christ, nor West End girls and East End boys. Wait, what? Totally different song, era, genre, band, etc.
Very recently, a family member of mine died. No harm, no foul. She was an important person to me, sure, that much is true. However, if I had a heart (and I suppose I do, as blood does flow), it seems to have grown hard and callous.
Do not get me wrong, it is not for lack of caring my body is built this way. I was, of course, remorseful, sad, grieving, the usual when the news hit. A bit peeved too, considering how the information was disseminated. Facebook is not an appropriate place to announce the death of family to more family. I feel this sort of thing is best left to the most impersonal of personal gestures: a phone call. A human voice is soothing, right? I digress, the news did rattle me, and I was upset.
This period of grieving was incredibly minor. Despite her influence in my life, which is a fair bit more grand than most extended family, I was quickly over and done with it. I read the news, I called my mother (who had just been informed via Facebook herself, and called her niece to confirm), and she was not shaken, after all it being her sister-in-law I'm sure had something to do with it, and I exclaimed "Well, my aunt is dead." My roommate turned to me, knowing my penchant for mental and emotional instability and asked if I was all right. And I was.
The pain/misery/guilt combo lasted all of five minutes, and returned only when it became apparent I could not make the funeral. You see, she died on a Monday, and the funeral was on the Friday. I found out Monday night, approximately 5-6 hours after her passing, and began to plan my trip Tuesday after clearing it with University officials. Unfortunately, a plane ticket would have cost $900, a bus ticket would have been $300 and every Amtrak ticket that would get me there in time was swiped up. I am a poor college kid, so I could not afford the plane. The bus was an option, but it was literally 30+ hours of travel, and I could not miss that much of my schooling.
And like that, coming to terms with my inability to attend, I was over the whole deal. It's disgusting, really, how I equate death, I think. Most people seem to be much more shaken when so much as a cousin, or some far flung relative, or even a cousin of a friend who they met once, but I don't seem to be as touched. Perhaps the people with whom I associate are simply melodramatic.
Really, I remember the first three deaths of my life vividly, and I remember the red hot tears welling in my eyes. My brother died when I was very young, as was he, I was a mere five years his senior, at the tender age of six. I remember the news, huddled in my parent's bedroom with my elder brother and elder sister, my mother choking on her words, delivering us the most painful news she's ever had to say aloud. My sister broke down immediately, and my brother, who had convinced himself he need not visit the hospital as he would have a whole life to live with his newest sibling, flew into a blind rage. I sat motionless for a time. My sister's heaved sighs and moans, my brother's cursing (which, incidentally taught me many of the colourful four-letter words I know today), and my mother's pleading with him to stop and calm down. Below, I heard the now unmistakable sound of my father hitting the liquor cabinet and the clinking of glasses of whiskey. Well, after a while, the news sunk in. I had only visited my brother in his glass box a few times, and it was the first time I had seen a baby up close. What a telling experience. We were not allowed to touch him, we were far too dangerous, so through plastic gloves I playfully waved at him and he did that quintessential baby thing and grasped my index finger and squeezed. I was so excited to be an older brother, for I loved my brother so. (Also, this is about the time our relationship turned sour, as he was an angry teenager, and I was a naive youngster.)
Realizing that all I had wanted at the time in the world was my younger brother, a good grade in handwriting, and to play "Secret Agent Man" all day was a pretty profound thing. I had my life in order. This was the only time I can remember where I had a clear set of goals that were immediately achievable (in my mind). The carpet was pulled, my face hit the floor, and I do not remember much else. I do not shed tears as often as I did in my youth, but if I recall rightly, my mother was terrified whenever I cried, as I made no sound. Even as a toddler, supposedly, after learning how to speak, I stopped blubbering. I guess a child who sits there crying silently for years is a pretty terrifying thing after being told your child has died. My mother frequently refers to that day as one of the worst in her life, and I can understand why. She sat with one child, dead in her arms, crying herself, only to go home and tell her remaining children of her experience, and kill some (or all) of their innocence.
The timeline of my life is confusing for me. I do not remember whether it was my Great-Great Aunt or my Grandfather who died next. I only know that my younger brother was the first. My Grand-Aunt was my grandmother, in essence. Both sets of grandparents lived far away in the south of the country, and I saw them very rarely. The most conversations I ever had with them at the time of Genevieve's death was over the phone, for hours at a time on holidays and birthdays. Genevieve was my grandmother, I think. In terms of role in my life. She visited occasionally, laden with gifts, and we children slept over her house occasionally and her house smelled weird and she had a bunch of cats. That is what grandmothers are, right? When her health took a turn for the worse, our family and her bachelorette self were the only family so far north. As such, we took her in during her last days. She took my bed, and my bed was moved downstairs. My mother and father recount horror stories of colostomy bags, sponge baths, and the like. I just remember seeing her with an oxygen tank, her flesh falling off her body nearly, lying in my bed with my sheets, calling me over with a little bell and asking for assistance for the most mundane of things. I do not begrudge her this, after all, she was dying. She had been good to me my entire life of eight years, so it is only right I be good to her in the last of her eighty years. I actually think she was closer to seventy, but oh well.
So, we played our part as servants. She died, in my bed, one day. I was at school when it happened, thankfully, and when I got back the body was already gone. However, her dying in the bed I slept in for the next ~7 years definitely creeped me out. Finally, at her funeral, more family appeared. My parents decided to leave it up to their children's discretion as to whether to stay or not. My brother, cold-hearted to the world, had "better things to do," which in retrospect probably means working at Wawa and getting stoned during break. My sister had some big fancy sports competition that she decided to attend and dedicate to Aunt Gen, and as for myself... I did not attend. I had no good excuse. I felt pressured, as I would be the youngest person in attendance, my parents told me it would be very boring and very religious and if I did not like that sort of thing I should go home with my neighbour. I did not and do not particularly care for my neighbour, mind you. I relented to their decision, because I felt they must know better than me. I have regretted that decision for pretty much my entire life. I have absolutely no closure with my Grandmother/Aunt type person. I saw her in her casket, I put a stuffed cat in the casket so she would not get lonely in the ground, and then I left. All the while after, while attending my neighbour's son's school's spirit day, I cried, silently, and begged to go back to the funeral home. She told me "You made your choice, Alex. I can't take that back, you can't take that back, and I can't abandon my son and daughter here for you." Though I am sure she was just trying to explain the situation to me with the best of intentions, to this day I think she was criticizing me for 'abandoning' my family. This experience is why I feel a compulsion to attend the funeral of every family member I can. Though, often times, I cannot, and so I am often left unfulfilled. This feeling of non-closure peppers my life, and so it does not bother me now, but it certainly did then.
The next monumental death in my life, I was no older than nine or ten. My sister had gone to college, so this one must certainly be the latest of the three. My grandfather died. Now, I know, I just said I had a very distant relationship with my grandparents. I only had three during my life, my paternal grandparents and my maternal grandmother. My maternal grandfather died before my mother was twenty, and being that I was born when my mother was in her thirties, I did not meet him. Though he seems like a swell guy, alcoholic as my paternal grandpa, but with more domestic abuse, and sans a leg.
Dziadzia was a weird man. He was old, very old, and a military man. The Army runs deep in on my father's side, and dziadzia was no exception. However, love of liquor runs deep on both sides of my family, and again, he was no exception. Purported now by many a family member to be a worthless drunk in his old age, I loved dziadzia. When I had to sit through those boring conversations with his wife, nima, I would have to be sweet, caring, kind, considerate and tactful. Nima loved the fact I was into birds. Dziadzia loved the fact I played video games. He was the only man I knew over twenty-something to own a PlayStation. In fact, when he died, he bequeathed his PlayStation and games to my older brother. A pittance of an inheritance, I am sure, but when you are young, that is badass. I realize you may be confused by the naming of my grandparents here, so I am going to explain it to you as my father explained it to me. Dziadzia is "Grandfather" or more accurately something like "grandpapa or pop-pop" in Polish, and Nima is a term of endearment like "honey or dearest." I do not know why we did not call Nima whatever the word for grandmother is in Polish, but what makes sense anyway? Anyways, by the time Dziadzia died, I had met him a few times. We had great fun playing F-Zero and various video games and card games and pretty much everything. Sure, he was probably piss drunk at the time, but what veteran wasn't?
Again, upon returning from another wonderful day at elementary school, I found my mother mournful in the big reclining chair. We knew Dziadzia's health had been declining, and my father had left with the newest addition to our family to go visit him. He went by train, as plane was too expensive for us. Dziadzia died about thirty minutes before my father arrived, and so my father and young brother, not even a year old, were stranded at the station for some time. Upon entering, I knew something was wrong. My mother was home before I was. She worked much later, and rode her bike, and her factory was definitely at least 5-10 minutes further away than my school by walking so--her being home sent up red flags. It didn't need to be said, but she started anyway, she spoke his name, I knew, I crawled into the chair, and did that horrible spewing of tears she hated. Being motherly and all that, I think she tried to comfort me. I'm sure of it. My older brother, pissed at the world, a high school senior or junior or something, came in and knew too. He saw me in the fetal position, my mother being all tender (which was rare since our brother died), and he grabbed me. He shook me something fierce and yelled at me for crying. I should be a man. Crying solves nothing. Did I think crying was going to bring him back? Dead is dead, get over it. It worked, I think. My mother did not appreciate his sentiment, and stood up, shaking, and smacked the shit out of him. It was very rare we witnessed one another get beat, so I was in complete shock at this point. It wasn't just a slap on the face. It was about five. She screamed something unintelligible and told him to get the fuck upstairs.
Maybe my brother's speech still rings in my head. Perhaps that is why death does not rattle me so. Maybe I am thinking too much on this, and other people are just being too sentimental. When Nima died a few years back, I shed zero tears. I feel horrible about this fact, but in truth, I have not really cried over someone's death since Dziadzia's. It's certainly not because I cared more for one than another, as I came to know Nima much better later in life. (My parents decided that it was unequivocally bad that we were being raised, essentially, without grandparents in our lives, so we visited often after Dziadzia's death.) The 'form,' if it can be called that, my grief took after Nima's death was cigarettes. I began to smoke after her death, ironically I think, in her memory. Everyone of my grandparents (and parents) was a heavy smoker. Nima, later in her life, was denied smoking not by her doctors (though they certainly didn't approve), but by her youngest son. He essentially said "well, stop smoking or you can't see my kids ever again." And, because he was the baby boy, and because he was a mama's boy, and because he lived across the street from her, and because they were the only grandchildren she saw regularly, she did. She did not really want to, but she did. She died of diabetes anyways, no smoking involved. At least Aunt Gen died of lung cancer, so you could argue that.
Of course, after death, everyone feels comfortable airing dirty laundry. I think a lot of it is invented and exaggerated. Then again, I am not innocent of this sin, so who am I to judge? My Aunt became a nymphomaniac, drunken harlot. She divorced her husband, allegedly because she was not getting it on the regular, and she was prone to gambling money away. My grandfather became a drunken, verbally abusive bastard who wasted his cheques on video games. My grandmother became a manipulative woman, disapproving of my parent's marriage (Catholic + Baptist? No, no, no! Say it ain't so!), who was keen on twisting her children to her whims. My maternal grandmother, a manic-depressive kleptomaniac who refused medication (it was not proper to see a psychologist in the 40s and 50s, so she was undiagnosed except by her children) and mentally, emotionally, verbally abusive after the death of her husband. The kleptomania thing was certainly true though, she stole me a bunch of Pokemon toys when I was a kid. I know they were stolen, if only because of the sheer volume. She would steal me 10-12 packs of toys with several repeats. I know they were stolen because, well, my mother kept her wallet when she visited. I do not know why but it was a thing.
My younger brother? Well his dead turned my heart to steel regarding a new younger brother. So, I treated my youngest with the most hostility I could muster, and our relationship remains tenuous to this day. I know I am simply mistreating him because of who he isn't, but I cannot bring myself to stop. It's terrible, really. I'll say something ridiculously sharp, and immediately know I have shaken him, but I will not apologize. At this point, my parents will not even interject, for fear of losing more children. They were once so keen on denying us things to show us how they were raised, how to make us better people, et cetera. Once the younger was lost, they began to satisfy whatever whim they could. I hate it, but I don't, and can't stop it.
What I am saying is, it has been a long time since someone's death has moved any part of me. In fact, I tend to look with more sadness as to how radically the people closest change rather than the radical change of a person no longer living.
Five minutes. Five stages. A few more, and I'll be just like Jack Donaghy and do all five in a second.
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