the darkness on the sky

Well, that sense of foreboding was justified. I got an email from my grandfather this afternoon. My grandmother's mother is very ill, in the hospital. She's stoppped talking, eating, and it seems that her body is shutting down.

As if it wasn't bad enough with that, her sister Linda's husband was murdered closing up his laundromat last night. The police think it was part of a robbery.

I can't imagine how hard it is for my grandmother and her sister right now. This is just so much at once. It's been a few years since I've seen my great-grandmother Love. She's been in a nursing home, as her mind has been wandering and most of her living relatives are also getting older. For quite a time, she's been living in the past as her twenty year old self on the family's old plantation. In some ways, I think that has been a blessing as it makes her happy. It's hard on my grandmother though. (Yes, we're from the South, and yes we did have a plantation. Sadly we sold it years ago cause it was just too expensive and hard to keep up. I would have liked to have seen it.)

I'm not ready to deal with my family getting older. Hell I'm not ready to deal with getting any older. This just terrifies me, and I don't feel adult enough stable enough anything right now. My hands shake and the panic seeps in under my breath.

I guess it is too soon right now. Cause I just feel sad and scared and empty. All I want is to go to St Thomas More and pray, and go home.

what if I was scared?

Thinking, thinking over again.

I remember the day I started college my grandfather died. His cancer came back and it moved too fast to stop it. He decided to stay at home and stop the chemo cause it just made him feel so sick. I talked with him on the phone at Christmas, and I can still hear his voice. The last thing I said was "I love you." I never spoke to him again, and when I think about it there is this awful burning horrible guilt about that. I only hope he knew that I loved him so much, he was the most brilliant example of love in my little life. The power and redemption of a love. He was there every summer of my life, teaching me how to swim, how to fish, how to throw rocks. Those are the happiest memories of my entire life, those summers with my grandparents. I'd give up everything I have to go back to that.

When I went up for the burial, I slept in the bed he died in. I miss him so badly, even after three years. I'm crying while I type, stopping to let my vision blur and clear. The headphones turned up so damn loud. If I wasn't at work, I would be making some noise. I remember having to restrain my tears, wanting to be together enough to hold my father and my grandmother. They needed someone so badly. My grief was internalized and when I got back home a week later I broke myself open on a dozen razor blades. There are some cultures where grief is demonstrated violently.

There is some fearful symmetry in knowing that death hangs over the family right now. I'm not ready for this. God help me, I'm still so scared.

I don't want to understand this horror
There's a weight in your eyes that I can't admit
Everybody here ends up in bottles
But the name tag's the last thing you wanted
As the world explodes we fall out of it
But we can't let go because this will not go away
There's a house built out in space...
I can't see that thief that lives inside of your head
But I can be some courage at the side of your bed
I don't know what's happening and I won't pretend
But I can be your...
Someone help us understand
This disgusting arrangement with time and the end
I don't want to hear who walked on water
Because the hallways are empty and the clock ticks
As the world explodes we fall out of it
But we can't let go because this will not go away
There's a house built out in space...
I can't see that thief that lives inside of your head
But I can be some courage at the side of your bed
I don't know what's happening and I won't pretend
But I can be your...