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I suppose I should get this post out of the way sooner than later. It’s causing me a great deal of writer’s block and I think maybe I can make some long-overdue progress if I sit down and churn it out.

Last Tuesday my grandma passed away.

I kind of knew it was coming and said so in this post. She caught COVID from my dumbfuck family and her being 89 and a heavy smoker put her in about the most high-risk category possible, maybe beaten out by those with auto-immune diseases but that’s about it.

Most surprising was how long she actually survived. That post was written August 10th, exactly 28 days before she passed, and that’s a pretty good run with COVID given her age. I even got my hopes up a little; she was discharged from the hospital three weeks ago and shipped to a nursing home. My mom was all doom-and-gloom as usual and I did my best to be positive about her condition and when I visited her. She looked pretty bad, but not like “going to die in a few days” bad like my mom made it sound. She made it another week because she’s stubborn as fuck.

It’s Sunday, five days since she actually died, and it feels like I should have something to say about it. Some grand essay on life and death and all of that. Put a big *shrug* here because there isn’t a damn thing I’m magically clearer on and I have no newfound wisdom that only people who have recently experienced a death have. Sure, life is precious, sure death makes this a bit more apparent, but death also is kinda the universe’s way of saying “meh” to the whole idea of life in the first place. If there’s one thing I’ve taken away from this is how mundane it all feels. Death happens and here I am. Nothing’s changed. Still gotta wake up, eat, brush my teeth, manage my emotions, stay sober, go to work, deal with morons at work, pay bills, clean the fucking cat litter, and so on. Nothing changed and that’s kind of the point.

I’m still questioning the grieving process. I’ve only cried once, three days after she died, and it happened randomly as I was driving to work one day. I stupidly decided to listen to a certain song that I knew was risky and lost it for a few minutes. The emotions hit hard and were gone by the time the song finished. Besides that I’ve been doing pretty damn good. No missed work, no pervasive depression, although I do seem to be more snappy and short-tempered than I usually am.

I feel guilty about it too. Aren’t people supposed to be sad or upset when someone dies? I’m not. She caught COVID and what did anyone expect to happen? Maybe I’m not that upset because it was like a month coming. Maybe if she died tragically without warning it’d be harder to process. I don’t know. This is the first person I’ve been close to and lost since my grandpa — her husband — died in like 2002 or something.

To me she’s dead and nothing will help change the situation. Sitting around feeling sad and crying aren’t going to help a single thing so what’s even the point of doing so? And now I feel guilty again for even feeling that way.

The situation might be changing my latent sadness into anger though. That’s a good possibility. Anger seems more proactive than crying and moping. I’m pissed at my cousin. I’m pissed at that whole side of the family. I’m pissed that maybe she only acted like she cared so she can swoop in and get grandma’s belongings. I’m pissed at the mindset that breeds these kinds of people. The anti-vaxxers and the conspiracy theorists played a role in making my family as stupid as they are. I’m pissed at our education system, social media, and conservatism over the past 15 years for breeding these types of people, for bringing these stupid fringe views out into the open for idiots to latch onto. I’m pissed at anti-intellectualism and anti-science beliefs that allow people like my cousin to exist and thrive in our culture. Those who happily use GPS, the internet, cars, and all of the shit science provides while ignoring science when it suits their own beliefs. I’m pissed at people who say, “Everyone’s opinions are valid.” I’m pissed at those people that think masks are somehow “just like the holocaust” and are seriously an attack on their personal freedoms. You’re freedoms to be a dumbfuck only exist as far as other people’s freedoms to not get killed by a virus you’re toting around.

Basically I’m a toxic ball of anger and hatred towards about 25-30% of the US population in general right now. Sure, my family killed her off, but the other millions are just as stupid and enabled this behavior through their own ignorance and selfishness. And the sad thing is my situation is not unique. The day my grandma died I found a post on r/QAnonCasualties from someone whose mother just died. Her stepdad, another dipshit anti-vaxxer and Q’er, got his wife sick; she died the same day as my grandma. Slightly different situation, same shitty outcome.

The funeral is Wednesday (they can hold people that long?) and I’m dreading that. I wasn’t even going to go — that whole ‘she’s already dead and what’s the use?’ thing again — but apparently I’ve been “volunteered” to be a pallbearer. Everyone else in the family is in no shape to lift anything over 40 pounds so it’ll just be my sister and I doing the literal heavy lifting. I still don’t know how that’ll go and maybe there will be a post about it in a few days, but my current idea is to be as antisocial and cold as possible. Sit in the back during the reception, go outside and vape nonstop, pound coffee like I’m trying to induce a heart attack, something like that. We’ll see.

Thanks for reading.

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