My poor, neglected blog, under all the virtual tumbleweeds. Resuscitation is required.
My grandmother died on Sunday morning - this one being my dad's mother. Kind of unexpected, heard on Friday that she was too ill and frail for them to even attempt surgery, with a timeframe of up to 72 hours - but she had been sick on and off for the past several months. Into and out of hospital probably half a dozen times recently.
I just feel empty about the whole process. It wasn't that she was a particularly bad grandmother, just one of those type of people that it can be hard to have a conversation with (is that bad of me to say about a dead family member?), and that I wasn't particularly close to.
Not particularly close to all of that side of the family really - Rotorua is the Centre Of The Universe and if you move away well, you are downshifting big time and sometimes it feels a bit unworthy of attention. With Dad moving to be with Mum in Wellington over thirty five years ago, and staying away, well, our spiral of the family has always felt on the outer.
I had only visited or seen her twice in the last eight years - once all the way back in 2000, when I travelled with the parents to visit Rotorua, the other about eighteen months ago (surely not that long, time sure does fly) when she and a couple of Dad's siblings came for a visit here. Not the best of times all around, that trip. And that will be the last time I will have seen her.
Of course, compare that to the closeness I have with Mum's side of the family. Even when I was still at school, we visited Mum's parents almost weekly - Dad and Grandad going off to the pub for a couple of hours, while us kids watched videos - hey, it was the 80s and early 90s - and the women chatting. No, that wasn't meant to sound like it was from the 1960s or anything, but it is a very calming, 'finding my centre' kind of memory in my life - if anyone knows what I mean.
And even when I was living away from home by myself, when in Wellington I used to visit Mum's parents once every two or three weeks, and when we were in different cities and countries, I did my best to see them at least once a year.
And then, when Grandad died in April, the mourning kicked in big time. I am soooo glad I went to see them in February - one of the photos I took then got put on the funeral pamphlet. Hey, it's my job in my family to be the photographer - and I like to think I am quite good at it. So, I went to the funeral in Tauranga, got up and spoke at the service, cried heaps.
But with Nana, that is not happening as much. And it is not just because I am so far away from New Zealand - with Grandad, I was gutted well before reaching Auckland Airport. And it is kind of giving me the guilts as well - that I am not mourning equally, that I am not mourning as I should, that when I think about the whole situation, I just have an empty hole inside, basically devoid of any emotion, positive or negative.
Guilty that I wasn't close to her or Dad's side of the family. Guilty about not going to the funeral, which was today - although it would have been expensive, I would have just gotten underfoot, and it probably wouldn't have been appreciated. The parents have gone, but they were not looking forward to the inevitable family tensions and gossip said behind backs etcetera. Guilty that I forgot to send flowers - although that probably wouldn't have been fully appreciated either - Dad's father died in 1990, so it is only the siblings left.
I thought that when I started writing this, some sort of emotion would flare into life, but it is strange, I am feeling number and number about it all. And no, not in a fainting or seizure way.
In one of those strange, circle of life twists, my second niece got born on Friday night. 9 lb 10 oz, almost two feet long, with a full head of hair already. Apparently that is a big baby, from what I have been told.
My blog is feeling like the cobblestones have been swept at least. Albeit perhaps swept lazily, but it is a start...
My grandmother died on Sunday morning - this one being my dad's mother. Kind of unexpected, heard on Friday that she was too ill and frail for them to even attempt surgery, with a timeframe of up to 72 hours - but she had been sick on and off for the past several months. Into and out of hospital probably half a dozen times recently.
I just feel empty about the whole process. It wasn't that she was a particularly bad grandmother, just one of those type of people that it can be hard to have a conversation with (is that bad of me to say about a dead family member?), and that I wasn't particularly close to.
Not particularly close to all of that side of the family really - Rotorua is the Centre Of The Universe and if you move away well, you are downshifting big time and sometimes it feels a bit unworthy of attention. With Dad moving to be with Mum in Wellington over thirty five years ago, and staying away, well, our spiral of the family has always felt on the outer.
I had only visited or seen her twice in the last eight years - once all the way back in 2000, when I travelled with the parents to visit Rotorua, the other about eighteen months ago (surely not that long, time sure does fly) when she and a couple of Dad's siblings came for a visit here. Not the best of times all around, that trip. And that will be the last time I will have seen her.
Of course, compare that to the closeness I have with Mum's side of the family. Even when I was still at school, we visited Mum's parents almost weekly - Dad and Grandad going off to the pub for a couple of hours, while us kids watched videos - hey, it was the 80s and early 90s - and the women chatting. No, that wasn't meant to sound like it was from the 1960s or anything, but it is a very calming, 'finding my centre' kind of memory in my life - if anyone knows what I mean.
And even when I was living away from home by myself, when in Wellington I used to visit Mum's parents once every two or three weeks, and when we were in different cities and countries, I did my best to see them at least once a year.
And then, when Grandad died in April, the mourning kicked in big time. I am soooo glad I went to see them in February - one of the photos I took then got put on the funeral pamphlet. Hey, it's my job in my family to be the photographer - and I like to think I am quite good at it. So, I went to the funeral in Tauranga, got up and spoke at the service, cried heaps.
But with Nana, that is not happening as much. And it is not just because I am so far away from New Zealand - with Grandad, I was gutted well before reaching Auckland Airport. And it is kind of giving me the guilts as well - that I am not mourning equally, that I am not mourning as I should, that when I think about the whole situation, I just have an empty hole inside, basically devoid of any emotion, positive or negative.
Guilty that I wasn't close to her or Dad's side of the family. Guilty about not going to the funeral, which was today - although it would have been expensive, I would have just gotten underfoot, and it probably wouldn't have been appreciated. The parents have gone, but they were not looking forward to the inevitable family tensions and gossip said behind backs etcetera. Guilty that I forgot to send flowers - although that probably wouldn't have been fully appreciated either - Dad's father died in 1990, so it is only the siblings left.
I thought that when I started writing this, some sort of emotion would flare into life, but it is strange, I am feeling number and number about it all. And no, not in a fainting or seizure way.
In one of those strange, circle of life twists, my second niece got born on Friday night. 9 lb 10 oz, almost two feet long, with a full head of hair already. Apparently that is a big baby, from what I have been told.
My blog is feeling like the cobblestones have been swept at least. Albeit perhaps swept lazily, but it is a start...
