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luvxanderI got a call yesterday from my Aunt Jean back up in my hometown. Seems that my Dad's brother, LeDonn died on Tuesday. Now, his death is by no means a shocker to anyone, he'd long ago drank away any hope of ever having an even slightly healthy liver and was riddled with about 4 different kinds of cancer. She was calling to asl me to be a Pall Bearer (is that the correct spelling?) at his funeral, which will be held today.
The problem here, and I'm still not sure if this makes me any less human or just a cold bitch, is that I find myself unable to care. I agreed to be one of the Pall Bearers out of familial obligation and the fact that his sons did the same at my father's funeral, but the only memories I have of my Uncle are of him being a mean, drunken, abusive son of a bitch (quite literally, my grandmother was a bitchmonster from the planet of hell who hated me from the moment of my birth and took pleasure in telling me this).
I want to care. I mean, just on the basic human being level, I should care that he died, and from all appearances, died in great pain. But the tears I find myself crying, the thing that kept me awake last night, wasn't grief, it was guilt. It hurts something in me to know that there are people out there that can die in massive amounts of pain, begging to die even, and I can't bring myself to care about them.
I can remember times when I've pulled my car over to the side of the road and cried until my throat was raw and my entire body hurt because I saw a dead animal in the street. Why can't I bring myself to care that a human being, someone I grew up know and am related to, just lay in a hospital bed for 3 days, begging the doctors to let him die? Maybe they were right not to call and tell me any of this until after he'd passed. Hell, I haven't even stopped to wonder why they didn't call. They called my brother.
Does this make me a monster? If I saw this on one of the tv shows I watched? And there was this person sitting there, not really caring about the life and death of others? I'd call him a monster.
And even with all this going through my head, I care more about the amount of money I had to take out of my Writercon savings to buy a suit to wear to the funeral than the fact that was someone so important to my Daddy is dead.
I, apparently, have more issues than I thought. I thought my manic depression was my biggest downfall. But it seems that takes a distant second to the fact that I don't seem to have a soul.
The problem here, and I'm still not sure if this makes me any less human or just a cold bitch, is that I find myself unable to care. I agreed to be one of the Pall Bearers out of familial obligation and the fact that his sons did the same at my father's funeral, but the only memories I have of my Uncle are of him being a mean, drunken, abusive son of a bitch (quite literally, my grandmother was a bitchmonster from the planet of hell who hated me from the moment of my birth and took pleasure in telling me this).
I want to care. I mean, just on the basic human being level, I should care that he died, and from all appearances, died in great pain. But the tears I find myself crying, the thing that kept me awake last night, wasn't grief, it was guilt. It hurts something in me to know that there are people out there that can die in massive amounts of pain, begging to die even, and I can't bring myself to care about them.
I can remember times when I've pulled my car over to the side of the road and cried until my throat was raw and my entire body hurt because I saw a dead animal in the street. Why can't I bring myself to care that a human being, someone I grew up know and am related to, just lay in a hospital bed for 3 days, begging the doctors to let him die? Maybe they were right not to call and tell me any of this until after he'd passed. Hell, I haven't even stopped to wonder why they didn't call. They called my brother.
Does this make me a monster? If I saw this on one of the tv shows I watched? And there was this person sitting there, not really caring about the life and death of others? I'd call him a monster.
And even with all this going through my head, I care more about the amount of money I had to take out of my Writercon savings to buy a suit to wear to the funeral than the fact that was someone so important to my Daddy is dead.
I, apparently, have more issues than I thought. I thought my manic depression was my biggest downfall. But it seems that takes a distant second to the fact that I don't seem to have a soul.
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Date: 2006-03-09 08:33 am (UTC)Everyone thinks they should feel sad at death. And on some levels, you probably do -- but not everyone mourns the deceased, and not everyone should. Sometimes numbness is all you can manage, if that, and that's okay. There's nothing at all wrong with that, and I dispise the industry that's made us think it's bad. It's not. It's just normal.
*hugs you tight* Hell, the fact you're going, when it sounds like you've had nothing but verbal and emotional abuse from that part of the family, is pretty damned amazing. And tells me how amazing you are.
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Date: 2006-03-09 09:02 am (UTC)You and Lar, you guys will probably never know what it means that you've said this. I can't bring myself to think of myself as a 'better person' or 'amazing', I'm not sure why. Years of training, I guess. But it means so much than you guys say it. One day, maybe I'll see it too.