MeghanIsMe

CW - death of a family member

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It's hard to imagine how my mother will be managing today. Her mother, my grandmother, died yesterday evening after a long period of time living with dementia in a care facility. I'm sure it's much harder on her than it is on me. I don't feel like I got to know my grandmother very well, and most of the feelings I'm having are centered on that. I was so scared of people as a kid, and it kept me from getting to know any of my extended family, really. I feel like I started connecting more with my grandfather before his death, when I would occasionally visit for him to show me how to do metalworking, but I didn't know him as well as I'd have liked. And even less, my grandmother. I hadn't seen her for years now, between being in Europe and then in Canada, and my parents tell me she likely wouldn't have recognized me anyway if I'd been able to visit.

It's strange and difficult being so far from my family as they manage things like this. I wish I could be with them in person to help. But I cannot, and I'm just thinking of them and telling them I'm here if I can do anything, and I guess that's basically the most I can do.

I am having feelings about this myself, for myself, as well as about and for my mother and parents. I'm just not really managing to get in touch with them well enough to know what they are. But I had Tears of the Kingdom to distract me for most of yesterday and that helped keep me busy while things process in the background, as they do. It's interesting; I used to have a lot of trouble being in touch with my emotions; even just figuring out what they are. My therapist in Chicago used to, in the middle of our sessions, pause and ask me how I was feeling. It was a really hard question to answer. That seems to be much less the case since starting transition, and I think it was a part of the gender-related disassociation I'd had resolving. Feeling like this now, not really sure what feelings are in there, reminds me of those experiences.

The death of a long-time, albeit almost entirely online, friend has been hitting me pretty hard. The absence of her frequent thoughtful and caring presence is one more bit of isolation in these isolated times.

The episode I'm listening to right now used audio from where I work, oddly enough. It was an actor playing a patient to whom a student doctor is giving a terminal cancer diagnosis as part of learning how to deliver bad news. Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross comes up too, which makes me think of a friend who is part of hosting death cafes to encourage people to talk about these things in ways that we often don't. Funny personal connections.

So the American Medical Association actually published ways for doctors to lie to patients who had cancer, to avoid telling them they were going to die. How fucked-up is that?

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The episode I'm listening to right now used audio from where I work, oddly enough. It was an actor playing a patient to whom a student doctor is giving a terminal cancer diagnosis as part of learning how to deliver bad news. Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross comes up too, which makes me think of my friend Sherry's work in hosting death cafes. Funny personal connections.

So the American Medical Association actually published ways for doctors to lie to patients who had cancer, to avoid telling them they were going to die. How fucked-up is that?

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What?! I just listend to a bit more after helping a couple of patrons. If a patient discovered the truth and reacted poorly to a fatal diagnosis? They recommended lobotomies. No shit. Aw, this person is having a hard time dealing with zir mortality? Who want to deal with that? Let's just lobotomize 'em. Jesus Christ.

This morning, I learned that my great uncle died last night as a result of alzheimer's disease. I didn't know him terribly well, but I don't know a lot of my extended family very well. I knew that he was a luthier who made and played classical guitars, and playing guitars makes me think of him. I didn't know that he was a unicyclist, and had made a 6-foot unicycle that he used to ride. Now a second skill that I practice in my own life will make me think of him. How funny, these things that sometimes run in families even without conscious awareness.

Sometimes I think of all the wonderful things that he, or my grandfather the blacksmith and farrier, or my great-grandfather who ground his own telescope lenses could make with their hands and I feel rather lacking. Right now, it's probably an accentuation of the unexpected lack that exists in my world with the passing of a family member.