Reactions

I usually have a pretty solid idea of how I think I will react to a situation before it happens. Being that I am not the most emotionally expressive person it isn't too hard to guess most of the time. I usually am at least close.

However, when it comes to major events my response is less predictable than usual. The list of events that would qualify as "major" is rather short, so I don't have a large enough data set to really get a good fit on it, but I do know that it has skewed both ways. Sometimes I react more negatively and sometimes more positively than expected.

My grandmother has been in poor health for a while, and I mentioned a few days ago that she had taken a turn for the worse. At that time I would have said that I was going to be glad when she died. Not because I didn't want to have a grandma anymore, but because she was not in a good place and it was better for her to be beyond the pain she was in. I would have also said that her passing would not be a major issue. Largely because we were not very close so the connection that was lost would not be significant.

Well, today my grandmother died.

So now I can look at the experience from a different perspective and see how my reaction lined up with expectations. Now, admittedly, this is not exactly a long time to process or come to mourn her passing so the fullness of the situation is not here. However, I can give a first pass.

I am more upset than I expected. Looking back I do not think I overestimated the relationship we had or underestimated my relief that she is no longer in pain. What I missed, and what I am not sure that I could have foreseen, was the unhinging that her death signifies.

Let me explain that. My extended family has had a tradition over the past years of getting together and spending time with each other. That coming together has largely revolved around my grandmother. On that side of the family she was the last of her generation. So now that she is gone I feel like that entire family grouping has become unpegged. It has lost the strongest anchor that it had to the past. The strongest connection that existed to our families history.

I have felt that my life has been somewhat defined by a lack of belonging, a lack of long term perspective. Here, the loss of my grandmother has particularly poked that feeling. Signifying the severing of the strongest tie that I have had, not just of the anchor of our family gatherings, but of our family's place in the world.