Real-life angst

[brigdh]

My grandmother died last night. It's not really a surprise, because she's been sick for weeks now, but then, how is death ever not a surprise?

I keep thinking that she could have lived if she had wanted to, if she had tried, because she obviously wasn't, everytime I saw her for the past month she's been talking about funerals and endings, even before she got sick. And then I think of what it must take to drive someone to that point, of how tired you must have to be before life can seem not quite worth it. I can't imagine that. Death terrifies me; I can't understand how this happens, how it is possible for anyone to be sick enough or old enough or depressed enough that they wouldn't want to live, if just for one more day, or more night. I can't understand how there can be so much in the world- all the cheesy things, the sunrises and stars and tall buildings and grass and little girls on skateboards and old men playing saxophones- how you can have all that, and no longer want it, be willing to give it all up for... who knows. Whatever else you believe there to be.

I'm flying home over the weekend to go to the funeral. I'll some most of my orientation on Friday, but it's not important; it all seems stupidly ironic to me: the old excuse of skipping work to go to your 'grandmother's funeral'.

Comments

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose. I mean, I know that it happens, what I'm saying is I just don't get the emotional logic of it, which I think you might have to experience to understand

and if the people you work with don't understand that, they're morons.

Um, no. I think you misunderstood me: no one has been saying that it's ironic, I keep thinking that. Because, uh, my brain is weird.