Life & Death, who do we mourn in a timely death?

It has been quite a long time since my last post. Needless to say, even with Mitt Romney’s dumb ass running for office, inspiration has been hard to come by. I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to write this blog. Well since you are reading it…

We had a loss in our family this summer: my grandmother passed away. It was hard on all of us, especially my mother, and for me the distance made it much more difficult. Death is hard, and my entire life I have been taught by social norms and social pressures about how to feel about it.  We all have seen the movies, the lucky ones anyways that haven’t witnessed a loved one pass; the entire family crying, everyone dressed in black, everyone is in mourning! Maybe certain losses are like that, maybe when a mother buries a child that’s how it should be; however, I did not feel that way regarding my grandmother. Now before you call me cold hearted and emotionless I want you to hear me out. 

My family and I have been blessed to not have had too many untimely deaths in our families. I did lose a cousin to the 1997 civil unrest, but I was too young to truly understand death and what it meant to me or the rest of the family. I was also too young when I lost my grandfather.  So this was the first time, in my cognitive adult life, I lost someone I cared about.  This experience left me with one question: When we mourn the timely death of our loved ones, who are we really mourning for? Death is hard, it truly is, and it hurts me to know what I will never be able to see my grandmother again. I spent the day she passed away thinking of her. I thought of her as she was during her life and not her last days; I cherished the advice she gave me and did not cry over the advice I won’t be able to get any longer.  Strangely enough, I felt a sense of jealousy over her. I was jealous of the life she led and I found myself hoping I have the same fate. 

How can I mourn the death of someone that lived a long and happy life? This woman watched all her five children grow up and have children or their own. Raised her grandchildren, and then watched them grow up and have children of their own. Lastly she got to witness her great children become selfish adolescents with peach fuzz in their faces caring about nothing but Facebook.  Thank god she never buried a loved one, besides her husband, and in the end; the natural order took its toll.  I accept that! I didn't want to mourn this lovely woman, I wanted to celebrate her. I wanted to celebrate the wisest of all, although she never made it past the 4^th grade. I want to celebrate the life of this angel, whose every wrinkle told a story about a worry she had about three generations she watched flourish into healthy, strong, responsible adults. 

I keep thinking back to that day, but knowing my grandmother, I know she was not sad for going. I know from the bottom of my heart that she feels the same way I do. Maybe not, maybe I am just projecting. But if I get to live 88 years, and witness three generations become adults, please don’t mourn me; celebrate me! Be jealous of what I got to live for, and even more jealous about how many loved ones I got to die surrounded by.