my grandmother is dying today....

I am not looking for sorrow or condolences so please do not send them...

she is the only one that ever cared for me when i was young... i love her a lot and she always loved me.

she had a stroke and heart attack and brian is swelling.. doc said she will not make it...

why do i not feel like crying?
is that normal?

my best memories were with her taking care of me... i am not crying, do not feel like crying, and do not feel extremely bad.
she is the only grandmother i have ever known...

she taught me to cook, and have fun... always was there for me... i would cry when ever my mom would pick me up from her house b/c i never wanted her to leave...

why do i not feel like crying?
is that normal?

Everyone responds to these types of situations differently. Don't preoccupy yourself with how you are feeling now and spend whatever time you can with her or family if possible. You are in the midst of this now and sometimes it takes a while for certain realizations to hit home. I know you didn't ask for this but I am sorry this is happening and I wish her luck.

and she was the one who fled cuba so i would have a chance to be an american... (with my pipo)grandfather(who died in hurricane andrew a long time ago.

At 10/13/2009 11:02:19 AM, Maikuru wrote:
Everyone responds to these types of situations differently. Don't preoccupy yourself with how you are feeling now and spend whatever time you can with her or family if possible. You are in the midst of this now and sometimes it takes a while for certain realizations to hit home. I know you didn't ask for this but I am sorry this is happening and I wish her luck.

thanks...

maybe your right... it just has not hit home yet... but i have logically looked at it... and still nothing... i thought i have forced to hit home... but maybe it just has not yet...

thanks... but no need for sorrow... i was not looking for that when i posted this... and do not want people to think i was looking for people to feel sorry for me...
don't... i am ok... really

I felt very little upon my mothers death when I was 11. People who are debated and are affluent in morality often experiences this. Atheists also feel very little for the most part.

At 10/13/2009 11:12:09 AM, I-am-a-panda wrote:
I felt very little upon my mothers death when I was 11. People who are debated and are affluent in morality often experiences this. Atheists also feel very little for the most part.

Thanks... i think that makes good sense.

I think we build up a resistance to emotional stimuli in the same way we build up a tolerance to pain. Some people have a high tolerance from the start for certain things. When I was younger, being punched in the face was less intimidating than a tetanus shot. Why? Who knows. It was stupid but our emotional self isn't rational.

When the moment hits, you'll know it. Maybe it'll be just after the death. Maybe it'll be when all the drama that follows a death subsides and you're sitting by yourself thinking.

We're a creature that is both emotional and intellectual. Using the latter to curb the irresponsible tendencies of the former is necessary but using our intellect to unnecessarily direct our emotional self only stunts our experience of life.

Not slobbering at this stage as others might is just who you are. It is, I think, your right. Just ride with it. Chances are, you don't have an emotional awareness of the cause/effect that's happening. The next death will be different because when something bad happens in the future, it'll plug into the loss you're about to experience.

It'll be like this. When the next tragedy happens, suppose it's another stroke to a friend, when hearing of the stroke, you'll begin to experience the loss of your grandmother again.

If that makes sense.

At 10/13/2009 11:57:48 AM, simpleton wrote:
I think we build up a resistance to emotional stimuli in the same way we build up a tolerance to pain. Some people have a high tolerance from the start for certain things. When I was younger, being punched in the face was less intimidating than a tetanus shot. Why? Who knows. It was stupid but our emotional self isn't rational.

When the moment hits, you'll know it. Maybe it'll be just after the death. Maybe it'll be when all the drama that follows a death subsides and you're sitting by yourself thinking.

We're a creature that is both emotional and intellectual. Using the latter to curb the irresponsible tendencies of the former is necessary but using our intellect to unnecessarily direct our emotional self only stunts our experience of life.

Not slobbering at this stage as others might is just who you are. It is, I think, your right. Just ride with it. Chances are, you don't have an emotional awareness of the cause/effect that's happening. The next death will be different because when something bad happens in the future, it'll plug into the loss you're about to experience.

It'll be like this. When the next tragedy happens, suppose it's another stroke to a friend, when hearing of the stroke, you'll begin to experience the loss of your grandmother again.

If that makes sense.

it does... thanks

Panda, I'm sorry about your mom. But hey, I'm an atheist, but I still respond to death. It's a natural process and not really about morality or happens after death, but rather mourning a loss in general. That's always tough. But hey, if it helps, you can take a physics approach to death :) Since energy can't be created or destroyed, when you die, your body doesn't lose all of its energy. Instead, only your cells die (which will then shrink and split into other molecules which have their own energy; these will then meet and react with other molecules all over the universe). So, although death definitely encompasses a loss, I try to think of it just as a transformation or whatever approach I happen to find comforting in that particular situation.

Sure. I'll also add:

Be careful where you get advice. Men experience things differently than women. If you seek guidance from women on this without putting it through a Mars/Venus filter, you'll end up making a butt of yourself.

That's from personal experience.