Funerals and Grieving

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Why do I never have anything to wear to a funeral?!

The last few weeks I’ve been posting a lot about my cousin who is in a coma. Today, this post is about another cousin. He had brain cancer for the last year and a half or so and passed on Halloween night from it. Today is his funeral, and when this gets posted, I’ll already be in my rental car on my way to the service for him.

As I keep mentioning, the last few weeks have been really emotional for me. I was devastated when I learned of my one cousin falling ill. I instantly began to cry. It was a physical reaction that I wasn’t expecting out of myself. I hardly ever cry like that. I hate crying. Every time I would get news of him, good or bad, I’d have that immediate emotional reaction. Thankfully, as updates are getting less frequent, and more positive, that emotional reaction has lessened. He’s now back in Windsor and everything is doing well.

Probably not the best time to do this, but I also recently stepped away from a friendship. One that I would have relied on to help me through the emotions of my cousin. And that was really hard for me. Again, I was completely overcome by emotions at my choice. But it was one that I had to make for my own happiness. Having silence where there used to be constant communication sucks. Like really sucks. But I’ve also started to (finally) move on from that and rebuild my own happiness up.

And then there is this cousin of mine. When my mom first told me he had a very aggressive form of cancer, I barely even batted an eyelash. I wasn’t even phased. And then when she told me that he had died, again, I wasn’t even phased. I don’t really think it’s part of the “we’ve known for a little this was going to happen so we are kind of prepared for it” thing either. I honestly can’t tell you why I had such an emotional reaction to one cousin and not the other, or such an emotional reaction to someone I’ve never met over a cousin but there is it. I’m not closer to one cousin over the other either.

The similarities between my two cousins are almost as unreal as the ones between my parents. Both cousins turned 58 this year. Both of them are 1 of 4 children. Both of them are the child of the eldest of my parent’s siblings. It’s strange how those things line up, isn’t it? It also means that they are both just three years younger than my mom. Thinking about having any of this happen to my own parent is really hard. You think about people dying and there’s this assumption that they are older and have lived a long life and all that but they are literally three years younger than my mom. Which sucks! I hate to think about that. But again, that thinking is getting more of a reaction than I’m having over the death of my cousin.

My kidlets had to go through their own grieving process this summer. Their grandmother passed and it was the first time that they had to really feel the sting of death in their lives. My own grandmother (the only grandparent I ever knew) passed when I was 12 (the same age as 2nd) so I know what they are feeling.

But they are so sweet. When I was leaving on Saturday I said that I’d see them on Tuesday and they were all “what?! Why not Monday?!” It’s also 1st’s 14th birthday. So I told them why and 4th walks up and pats me on my arm and goes “I’m sorry for your loss”. Such a strange thing to hear from a 9-year-old but she learned it from her grandmother’s funeral haha. 2nd said that same when she heard the news as well. I love those kids!

So I’ll be away from my computer until the evening as I drive 3 hours to get to Owen Sound on time and then back into the city after. It’s not the funeral I was expecting to have to be attending, but still!

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30 thoughts on “Funerals and Grieving”

  3. There’s been a lot of sorrow lately for you. Giving up on a friendship is hard, even when it’s the right thing to do and when it coincides with other losses it makes it doubly hard.
    It’s sad butcsncer is kind of something we expect in our families now. You’ve had longer to come to terms with that cousins mortality. It doesn’t mean you aren’t affected, just that it’s come on the heels of other losses and like punches, you get numb to it. Your other cousins illness was a far more dramatic event. There was no adjustment period so naturally you had a more immediate reaction.
    Just be kind to yourself, you’ve had a lot to process all at once

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  7. That really does sound like a lot. Maybe one cousin evoked more of a certain time and place or circumstances that really meant something to you and the you that you were back then, and were less about that individul than about the loss of that world…? Best wishes with it all.

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    • I thought it might be that too but really both were on equal standing for that too. I really can’t explain it. Maybe it’s the fact that as a whole, I think we are becoming desensitized to the word cancer? So when I heard he had it, it was just like “oh wow…ok…that’s not shocking news” but an aneurysm and a coma is more of a shock? I don’t know lol

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