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Am I fucked in the head?

siiky

2023/02/10

I saw this by chance in the Midnigh Pub.

A Death in the Family

It reminded me of something I've thought about but kinda tried not to too much.

My paternal granddad died a few years back -- I'm the worst with dates, I'm gonna guess 4~5 years? But the thing is, it didn't affect me much. It might not even be an understatement to say that it didn't affect me at all. I remember one of my cousins asking me how I was doing and thinking to myself that I was just fine.

That bugged me. That, concerned me more than the fact that my granddad had died. Then and now still. And it goes meta: it concerns me more that, it concerns me more that it didn't affect me than the fact he's died, than the fact he's died.

My paternal grandma died last year too. I know it was last year only because this was the first year I remember not celebrating her birthday (I did say I'm the worst with dates). Getting the news that she'd died was weird, totally unexpected to me. She was like this vigorous force, fierceness itself, nothing stopped her from doing whatever she wanted. Yes, she was over 90 and had some health issues, but she was also one of those old folks who don't stand down in the face of anything -- "'tis but a scratch". And again it barely affected me. More than my granddad, but only slightly.

'Tis but a scratch

Why is that? Am I an emotionless fuck? I'd say no, knowing what I know. Could it be I just wasn't emotionally attached to either of them? That could be it... At least with my granddad; I have very few memories of him. In fact, I've almost exclusively memories of visiting him at the home ("lar" in PT, which means "lair" and only makes me think of Mayhem's "Wolf's Lair Abyss"). With my grandma, I wasn't the most attached ever, not as much as most of my cousins (I'm one of the youngest), but I spent time with her. I remember doing things with her. So... what then?

There's this other thing. Many springs ago I had a dog. He was a Pyrenean Mountain dog and he was the best, just the fucking best ("do caralho" in PT, or "de puta madre" in ES; you may have heard it in La Casa de Papel)! And there came a time around highschool when the vet diagnosed him with Alzheimer, which meant he sometimes didn't remember us. That was dangerous because, being such a burly dog and naturally wary of strangers, he could very easily attack one of us puny humans seriously in an "episode". He did threaten my dad once -- or probably more but I don't remember well, maybe I didn't or don't want to believe it. So he "had" to be put down.

gemini://gemi.dev/cgi-bin/wp.cgi/view/en?Pyrenean_Mountain_Dog

I semi-frequently think about him and that time, and I feel like the worst, I feel really guilty about it. Among other things, because if only I'd pushed back harder, maybe he could've stayed with us for longer. Maybe it would've turned out well, maybe not. We just don't know, we didn't know, we couldn't know, and we'll never know.

But that's kinda besides the point. What I think is the point, is that it was so much harder to deal with losing my dog than my paternal grandparents -- combined! So much so that I still haven't resolved the former... (real oof, had to take some breaks writing the two previous paragraphs)

Now, is that bad? Is it bad that losing my grandparents didn't affect me? Should one be unconditionally affected by the loss of one's close family member? And is it bad that losing one of my dogs was worse an experience to me? Am I just more human scum? Am I fucked in the head?