On Death

[grammargirl]

The summer I was twelve years old, both my father and great-grandfather died--almost exactly a month apart. My father was living in New York at the time, and through communications snafus involving my mother not recognizing my father's new wife's name, we didn't even find out about his death until two weeks after the fact. He'd converted to Orthodox Judaism fairly recently, and because Jewish law dictates that the dead cannot be embalmed and thus must be buried almost immediately, I didn't get to go to his funeral--not that I would have been invited anyway, or been able to travel to New York even if I had been.

I have no memory of my great-grandfather's funeral. It's possible that my mother sent me to stay with friends or something.

All of which is to say that I have very little experience with death. In high school I attended two funerals when close friends had family members die, but though several relatives have died within my lifetime--great-grandfather and great-grandmother, father, and now my grandmother--I am not experienced with the ritual and procedure that accompanies the death of a close relative. I have no idea how long it takes to plan a funeral, if I am expected to be in attendance at the reading of the will, if I'm supposed to help clean out my grandmother's apartment. I don't understand the time frame.

And really, I don't know how to react, how to feel. My first instinct was to rush home to be with my mother, to blow off classes tomorrow so I could be with her, but she seems to want me to wait for the weekend. The biweekly PCAP meeting starts in about two hours--am I still supposed to go to that? It seems sort of silly to sit here by myself doing nothing, but I don't think I'd be able to contribute much to the meeting either.

I haven't cried yet. I don't know if I can.

Dammit, I just talked to her on my birthday, and she sounded so good. She was going to come to Thanksgiving with the family.

And I'm ashamed, because I can't make that stupid insistent voice in the back of my head shut up, the one that keeps whispering about wills and money and paying back student loans. I really, *really* do not want to be thinking these things right now.

My friend Amy just told me I could go over to her house and talk or just sit around or whatever, and as sitting around here is just making me more upset, I think I'm going to go spend some time with people.

Thanks, by the way, to everyone who has left comments for me. I really do appreciate it.