After my maternal grandmother, Momo, died, my blood aunt on that side of the family washed her hands of the entire clan, and disappeared. She was angry, angry at a lot of things. Ways she thought she had been wronged, ways she had been wronged. She had cared for Momo almost exclusively for the last years of Momo’s life, with little input from a large Catholic family. The family, from what I remember and what I heard, just sort of assumed my aunt would care for Momo, since my aunt was a nurse. Therefore, it just made sense, right?
My aunt took close care of her mother until after the funeral, and then said some very choice words to her siblings, and vanished.
An impulse, after last night, I could understand. Emotions run high, and you get stuck. You hold on to anything but the grief, because the grief is there, threatens to overwhelm you, drown you, drag you to a depths you might not climb out of. Anger is raw, external, directed away and out.
Of course, it doesn’t help that that side of the family can hold a grudge like I’ve never seen…
I’m drifting. I blame the sedatives.
I’m not so concerned, tonight, about stupidity or the family falling apart. My family is amazing. I’ve talked a lot about my sister because she reads this (even when she’s irritated with me), and we don’t really have the relationship, yet, where we just come out and talk about raw emotions. We’re working on it, but for now it’s easier for me to talk about her and for her to see the compliment rather than me simply tell her. (Gee, do you think perhaps my family has a problem accepting compliments?) I haven’t really talked much about my father, and hardly at all about my brother. And then, of course, there’s the cat – a marvelous and strange story in itself to tell. Add in geographical fun with photographs an religion, and there are some interesting things to talk about.
But I can’t get my mind off the sniffling I can hear all around me, or the sound of my mother blowing her nose. The sound of Tracy blowing her nose. The same sound.
It’s strange what we hold on to and how we express the things we don’t know how to deal with. We are strange and magical creatures, we humans.
I hope in time you will feel ready to tell some of these stories. Not when anyone wants you to, but when/if you want to. I’d like to hear them, if you ever feel like doing that.
I have snap-pea crisps and dragonfruit and espresso chocolates waiting to make their way to you (along with other things). I know they’re minuscule. But they’re ready when you are.
(What was that about how we express things we don’t otherwise know how to handle?)