The Opposite of Life

So there was a death in my family on Friday and I felt like crap because I didn’t care much. I guess I should take a second to explain. The person who died was the wife of one of my mother’s cousins. I haven’t seen the woman in at least nine years and that’s assuming that she was at the last major family funeral I attended, but she probably wasn’t.

I always feel strange when someone who I don’t really know dies and I’m expected to feel sad but I don’t. Does that mean that something is wrong with me? Sometimes I’ll watch stories on television or hear something on the news or read something in the newspaper or online and feel sadder for complete strangers than I do for my own family. The irony is that some members of my family are virtually strangers to me. I could pass them on the street and not even know who they were. That’s how it is with the woman who died. My mother met her before and knows her husband well, but I can’t even conjure up an image of either of them.

So I spent the weekend beating myself up and thinking there must be something wrong with me because a normal person would at least care a little bit about what was going on. It was awful. I felt so guilty. I couldn’t write anything. I tried analyzing myself and trying to feel something about the situation but I came up with nothing. I woke up this morning and I just felt better for no real explicable reason. I’m not the first person who isn’t close to every single member of my family and I won’t be the last.

The Only Thing That’s Promised

Death,
Like a promise of something more
I don’t seek it, but it finds me
Catches me in dark corners and winks,
Runs when I reach for it.

Life,
Like an album I’ve heard before
With lyrics I know from a to z
No chasing involved,
I always have it in my hands.


Emotional status: Mentally relieved.