I am going up to Rhode Island this weekend to visit with my grandmother who is very sick. It may very well be the last time I see her. Mortality is really hard to contemplate when you try and think about how you are going to deal with the circumstances of the deaths of your own loved ones. It's easy enough to say "I can be at peace with it because everybody dies and it's a part of life." I have also thought "Death may be a parting, but it's really a time to celebrate the life of the person who has moved on." However, I have never lost anyone very close to me, so it is all still very abstract.
I remember when my great-grandmother died, but I was very little so it was distant. I remember when a boy in my fith grade class died of Leukemia and we went to his funeral, that was a bit surreal. Several older people I was pretty close to at some point from church have died recently and that came the closest. It was powerful to think that that person will never occupy space in the world ever again. They are completely and totally gone. I still think that way about Nemo, sometimes. I know it's not quite the same, but the fact I will never get to kiss his nose ever again still makes me cry once in awhile.
It will be great to see my family and spend some time together. First family road trip in more than a decade. I will be drawing a line on the backseat that my brother can't cross, just in case.
