I have been thinking lately about death, not mine so much as somebody else's -- my mother's. She's not "old" by any stretch and she's in good health, although one foot keeps paining her. It's that damn Buffy. *swears more* There's that awful story arc with Joyce, Buffy's mother, and it gets my every time. For a month or so of syndicated season five, my mom was getting a lot of eight A.M. phone calls just to say "I love you", because Buffy runs six to eight here.
I don't know what I'd do without my mother. I think I'd drive back to Yankton, not really paying attention to the road. If by the grace of God alone I managed to arrive safely, I'd hog the Internet and tell anyone who would listen that my mother was gone. It wouldn't sink in, not for a long time. I'd wait for her to wake my brother for school, and only after minutes passed would I realize anew that the task was mine now. My mind would refuse to acknowledge her absence, as though that act would somehow keep her where I could reach her and tell her once again that I love her.
Fuck, I'm getting all broken up here for no reason. She's still here. I really don't know what I'd do without her, though. Squirt's still a minor and would have to go live with my dad. Dad wouldn't bother to ask about homework or grades like Mom, so the kid wouldn't bother to do it... it would all be very sad.
If my dad died, I'd cry. It wouldn't be as big a shock -- emotionally, he's never quite been here with me in the first place. I'd cry. I'd probably miss the funeral, because my mom wouldn't go, of course, and without her I don't get much done. I suppose my grandparents or an uncle might give me a lift, though they never see me anymore. I'd blubber and wish one more time that I'd been able to be the child my father wanted, and that he could have been the father I felt I needed. In some ways, it would be a clean break at last. I wouldn't have to wish anymore. He would be completely gone from my world, and perhaps that would let me finally forgive him his inability to be the perfect hero I had for so long imagined him to be.
Dear God, the holidays. I hate the holidays. Every November and December, I can feel myself slipping deeper into a well of despair. I don't know all the triggers. I think the cold weather and often-overcast sky contribute.
I always compare myself to my cousins, especially the girls about my age on my father's side. They all got to go to DisneyLand and Mall of America and none of them buy their jeans at the local farmer's store. They wear makeup and highlight their hair and date. They all go to the same college, which pleases grandma to no end, as it's a Christian school of her own conservative denomination.
There is a place for my eldest cousin at the "adult" table, now that he is married. I am third-eldest cousin, with the girl between us not a full year older than me. I hope I'm not expected to find a nice boy in the Bible studies I don't attend and settle down, carry on the line, if not the surname.
Visiting grandma makes me feel like I will never be truly grown-up. She still makes that wretched generic orange juice that tastes only slightly better than urine smells, and still serves cookies with napkins, so we don't spill.
On my mother's side, with the relatives I'm seeing this weekend, it's different. I have a couple female cousins some years older than me, and one with a similar gap where I'm the older of us. Growing up, I only saw one with any consistency, and she drives me into rage. She's perfect, or seems so. If she has a weakness, she hides it inside her power suits and prettily platinum hair.
I don't want to see these people. I don't see why I should. I barely know them, and I'll never get to know them. I only see most of them once a year, some of them only a handful of times per decade. Why should I bother to get to know who they are when they'll just depart and everything goes back to normal in a day or two?
Oh, the things I think about when there's nobody on AIM.