the thing is...how exactly do you mourn when you don't know the deceased? or, as in my case, how exactly do you deal with a relative dying who you don't know but should who doesn't know you now anyway and never did...

alzheimer's...and my grandfather has it and he's had it for a long, long time. i'll write more on this later, as i had major waterworks earlier. which brought me back to something i thought when everyone was dying during undergrad and in the years after...that we mourn, we cry for the dead because of selfish reasons. no, i'm not saying that we're all selfish for crying for the dead and the dying. but in a million and one different ways, we are crying because we're trying to resolve it for ourselves. the dead? things have resolved somehow no matter what you believe that happens when we die. sure, we're crying because no matter how much time they had on this earth...but really crying because we know we're not going to see them any longer and because we know that someday that will be us as the subject of the mourning of others.

we mourn the days, the hours that we did not spend with them and never will have the chance to do so again. but the hours, these hours...this is a new style of mourning. this is the legacy of the sociopath known as my father's mother...and i mourn the generations of damage, i mourn the fact that i never got to know my grandfather no matter how many times in my life we've been in the same room. and now? there's no chance. yes, there's still chance that i will be able to see his physical being that's still here on earth. but where his soul has gone, where his will has slipped away...i'll never meet my grandfather for the first time.

and it makes me want to curl up and sleep for days but i haven't, i don't...yet. and it reminds me of the cycle...how the nameless and faceless person i was looking for was me. so i look on expedia and whatnot...knowing that i will soon become the nameless and faceless person for someone else. does that matter? does it matter that i am?

be strong and you shall be renewed on last day.