Rain

[brigdh]

For the last few days it's felt like rain here; the sky thinks of raining or almost rains or is on the verge of beginning to rain, but actual rain has been rare and brief, and cools nothing. Mostly it's just been grey, sun gone behind clouds and the wind lost in the humidity, and the sort of haze that makes everything look far away and unreal, and occasionally there's a roll of thunder that does nothing more than the sound of an airplane. It's not as hot as it has been, but it feels like it regardless; everything looks so grey and misty than any heat is unexpected and unavoidable.

When it does rain, it does it heavily, the sound of water spilling and rushing off roofs and along the ground drowning out any individual drops, and the electricity flickers on and off. Lightning flashes pick out the white patio table in the blackness of night and grass, so for a moment it leaps out in the corner of my vision, vivid white.

My grandmother is dying. Or maybe not. She thinks she is; the opinions of family and doctors differ. But then, she thinks she is, and how much of a placebo effect do you need, if you're already ninety and sick?

I don't know how I feel. The last time someone close to me died, he was only 17, and that was easy to be angry at, because I was already half-furious at the universe for mortality, and this was a blatantly unfair example of it. Now I vacillate between that same anger and sadness and resignation that if she wants to die, it's her own choice, but none of it is as strong as before, as if they could cancel each other out to leave nothing. I don't want to call anyone to talk about it, because I don't have anything to say. I want to do something, or more accurately, I want to want to do something, but what- I don't know. It's like I have only half-starts, and everything else is confusion, or waiting.

Comments

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I remember this tangle of feeling so well from the death of my grandmother a couple of years ago. It's hard, that waiting and confusion, and that weird sense of not-quite-futility, as if there should be some action that you should be taking in response to the situation, if only you could think what it was.

Somewhere or other -- I can't remember precisely where it is -- Florence King has a wonderful riff on how this very feeling is what fuels the traditional behavior of Southern ladies dealing with funerals. Picking at the arcane details of etiquette, she argues, is nothing more or less than a socially-constructed way of giving everybody in this situation something she should be doing, allowing this set of feelings to be worked out without people making themselves more crazy and miserable than the situation requires by its very nature.

But I'm sorry you're going through this. It's a rotten thing to have to deal with, and I'm still peeved with the universe for being this way.

some words

[sunfalling.livejournal.com]

I remember feeling this way when I visited my grandmother in the hospital after her stroke and my Dad after his chest surgery. They've both recovered almost completely now, but the wary feelings are still stuck in my memory, the feeling when you go to visit someone in strange, white hospital room and you have absolutely nothing to say. In those times, I knew I needed to make conversation, offer some familiar comfort, but I just felt shy, blank and numb.

The sudden understanding of mortality is terrible, the dry-mouth realization that "All these people I love are going to die." Maybe it's difficult for humans to think about the future in these terms. I don't think I can even hold onto thoughts like this or even consider them deeply if I expect to keep functioning in my everyday life. Forgetting about pain and death are cruel/kind biological coping mechanisms for us, I think.

I'm sorry if I'm babbling insensitive nonsense. Truth is, I've never lost anyone close to me and I'm spoiled in this respect. Your writing in this post is very beautiful and moving in its revelation. Like always, I want to write something sympathetic or comforting for you, but I just don't have the words to make it okay.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Yes. So yes. I visited my grandfather in the hospital when he went in for what became quickly obvious was the last time, and I just knew, and it was so...surreal, knowing, and being, for a short time, the only person who did, though I think the doctors knew and were trying to be gentle. It's so familiar, saying goodbye, and always new, and...hard. ::hugs::

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yes. There's something so strange about treating adults like children, but otherwise they won't do all those normal things, drinking and eating. And I suppose it's their choice to stop, but it feels so strange to me; I can't understand making that choice.

Re: some words

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

and you have absolutely nothing to say

Oh God, yes, that's exactly it. It feels wrong to make small talk, if I could even think of any, but there's no big dramatic statements that are appropriate either. But you put it perfectly.

Thank you, though. I really do appreciate the effort it takes to say anything about topics like this.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's it exactly. Thank you. *hugs*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

a socially-constructed way of giving everybody in this situation something she should be doing

Oh, yes. I can see in a million ways why this is a good idea, even moreso know that we've had the funeral, with all the relatives coming in from distant places and the necessary gossip and stories that goes with that, but which feel weird during mourning, and the one guy no one likes but who you can't just tell to go away... yeah. Clearly delineated projects is an excellent way to deal with it.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I could help. ♥