My Grandmother Had a Stroke

It has been a while since I've written... I know that I start every post with a similar phrase if not the same. Oh well, it gives my blog a sense of uniformity I guess. In any case, I haven't really had anything to write about. I go to school and I go to work. I make money, then I spend money I should be saving up for my trip to Rome, Italy. People ask me what's new with me and I really don't have an answer for them. The events of my life have been undulating from minor highs to lows. My love life has been non-existent and I am satisfied with that. Nothing in my life has really stood out in the past few months.

This morning, my mother told me that my (maternal) grandmother had a mini-stroke. It made me realize that life is always moving. Things break down, fall apart, and sometimes they can't be perfectly mended. It made me realize that if anything did ever happen to my grandmother... if she were to die, my family would push a generation forward. My parents would then be at the forefront of life, the ones that would be face to face with mortality. And once they are gone, it would be me, my sisters and I, who would be leading our family towards an uncertain future.

My reaction to my mother's news reminds me of Camus's Meursault who started the novel L'Etranger by saying, "Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas." There's a sense of apathy or perhaps an inability to the sensitivity of the matter. I cry when I see tragedies in movies and I become anxious when I hear of misfortunes happening to others distant from me, yet when things happen to me (e.g., illness or death of someone close to me), I feel numb. I feel no reason to cry, to worry, or to even feel sorrow. This is the woman who raised me from early infancy to the age of five while my mother worked abroad. She was basically my surrogate mother since birth to the age of five. I remember her taking me to the fish markets during the weekends. I remember the mornings when we would sit on her veranda in the countryside and watch the sunrise. She loved me unconditionally and gave me unconditional positive regard... perhaps even more so than my own mother. However, I am more focused on asking myself questions than actually feeling vulnerable. Perhaps it's a defense mechanism of mine to not suppress emotion, but to completely rid myself of it.

Perhaps, in truth, I have no sympathy for anyone but myself.