Death
Disclaimer: I probably shouldn't write this entry, because it is really callous at a time like this, especially to those who are affected. If by any quirk of fate, anyone who has lost someone to the tsunamis stumble upon this entry, I humbly beg your forgiveness, and ask you to please not read this. But this is, after all, my blog. And this just happens to be my reaction to it.
Tuesday night when I came back from Cambridge, my housemate told me about the tsunamis that killed tens of thousands in Asia. I nodded. Blinked. Drew a blank. I suppose I was supposed to be shocked, saddened, sympathetic. Instead, I was rather apathetic.
When I first heard the news, a sharp stab of alarm seared me for the briefest of moments: did it strike the area affecting my family? friends? ex-boyfriend's family? no, no, no. That spark was smothered. It became barely-interesting factoid #4759. But my house mate's eye brows were raised, his eyes round as saucers, face and voice rich with expression of shock at the occurrence of natural disaster, the death toll. So, pressured by the evident expectation of some kind of emotional reaction, I widened my eyes to a suitable degree of impressedness , nodded with as straight a face as I could manage, and bit my my lip - I was about to start making one of those highly inappropriate and irreverent comments that I invariably let loose when faced with some crisis.
Presumably, I really ought to be a lot more serious about death, and treat it with the respectable level of sombre gravity that it deserves. But the way I see it, death is a tragedy only to those it directly touches. They are the ones who feel the pain and anguish. To everyone else, the presence of death probably leads to an inward sigh of relief and celebration of life: Thank goodness it wasn't me. So all the posing, and mournful expressions are almost a mockery of what the deceased's loved ones are going through.
I remember my first funeral when I was 10, or maybe younger. I was dragged unwillingly to the funeral of this distant relative I never even knew I'd had. It was an awful traditional Chinese funeral, the kind where they burn paper gold, and cardboard representations of material goods, so that the deceased may have all his/her worldly luxuries in the Underworld. This one was complete with an ornate double-story cardboard mansion, limousine and servant, every luxury the Dead would dream of having in his Afterlife, with an impressive level of detail - down to the television remote control. One wonders what that poor relative of mine must be feeling right now, with the new Dead waltzing into the Netherworld with iPods, PSPs, and the latest in digital technology. [example of my very rude, irreverent remarks at inopportune moments]
So there I was, in the the early 90s, inspecting the gargantuan confection that was the offering to Mr Dead Guy with somewhat incredulous but quite a bit impressed eyes, my mind noisy with wry comments that the impish observer in me spits out. Then I looked around the funeral hall, and the giant gazebo outside, at the adults in dark colours, all trying to look suitably depressed, and I wondered how many of them actually knew this dead man enough to care, and how many were there out of a sense of duty and were just dying to get the entire ceremony over and done with so that they could get on with their errands and with the business of Living. I thought about how maybe just a handful of people would actually feel a gap in their lives by the departure of this man - and them, I wish well - but for the rest, the long faces were just an act, social etiquette, and they all had to be careful to be tippy-toe, sombre, and proper. And scarilegiously, I wanted to burst out laughing. But even the kid that I was, I knew how to bite back my laughter and put on my best mourning face, which made the situation even more ironic.
Twice more since then, has Death struck my family. Several years ago, a maternal cousin died in an accident. And a couple of years back, my grandmother passed away. In both cases, when I was told about the deaths, I was struck by the blankness that followed the announcement.
I know that there are supposed to 5 stages of grief:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
What I find disconcerting is that I seem to skip the first 4 stages and go right to Acceptance. "Ah-Ho ko-ko died in a car crash? Oh. Okay.", "Ah-Na passed away? Oh. Okay." In the first case, I remember feeling a faint regret that I did not feel more than a faint regret. In the second case, I remembered examining my emotions quizzically: did I feel sad? The answer that the pale, contemplative me came back with: No, not really. I feel almost like a bystander. Death does not touch me.
Perhaps my unfeelingness can be excused by the fact that I wasn't close to my cousin. We used to play together in a big raggedy crowd as children. But he was far older than I, and I would only visit my maternal family home once a year, if that. And as the years went by, as the only one of the cousins on the maternal side of the family living in the capital city, speaking English at home, with the working middle class emphasis on education, I became further and further removed from my Hokkien-speaking, more rough and ready boy cousins. Being painfully shy, and hampered by my inability to speak Hokkien, didn't help to bridge the gap that had cracked wide open between us with the passage of time. I wish very much, that we had stayed the way it was as children. That was one pang of regret I felt when I heard of my cousin's death. I wish we had remained close, maybe then I would have felt sad when he died.
I find it very disturbing that I felt nothing when my family members died. I wonder how much of my unfeelingness can be justified by the distance between my cousin and I, and the expectedness of grandmother's death. She was in her late 80s and stricken with cancer. Or if I have an internal crisis-management mechanism that kicks in that buffers me from pain and feeling. Maybe subconciously, the way I cope is through laughter, or the veneer of sophistication I put on when I make flippant remarks - when in doubt, crack a joke or make an outrageous comment. Not everybody's cup of tea certainly. But I have noticed that I am the worst person at comforting someone. I hate repeating cliches because I think they are hollow or hypocritical ("I know how you feel" - and how Do i? am i a worm in your stomach?, "It's okay" - when i Jolly well Know it's Not okay, "I'm sorry" - does me being sorry make a difference??). So invariably I end up offering food (which is the only way I know how to show I care and to make a tangible difference. Blood glucose levels and endorphins you know), or coming up with outrageous stories, or comments to see the funny side of things. Of course, that always comes out wrongly, and I end up seeming very callous and cold-hearted.
But sometimes, I really think that part of me is immune to certain kinds of feeling. Numb. My ability to feel has been stunted, I feel uncomfortable with specific emotions/events, and that has manifested itself in my detachment and clownish responses.
I think that's enough psycho-analysing of myself for now. But the truth is, I Am disturbed by my apparent unfeelingness. I feel guilt for not feeling sad over the tsunamis. Add that to my two family deaths, and I'm beginning to feel like I'm a cold unfeeling bitch. I mean, I agree whole-heartedly that the tsunami event is a tragedy. It just happens to be removed from me is all. Is it so very abnormal to feel a strange kind of nothing? Or am I just being honest?
Tuesday night when I came back from Cambridge, my housemate told me about the tsunamis that killed tens of thousands in Asia. I nodded. Blinked. Drew a blank. I suppose I was supposed to be shocked, saddened, sympathetic. Instead, I was rather apathetic.
When I first heard the news, a sharp stab of alarm seared me for the briefest of moments: did it strike the area affecting my family? friends? ex-boyfriend's family? no, no, no. That spark was smothered. It became barely-interesting factoid #4759. But my house mate's eye brows were raised, his eyes round as saucers, face and voice rich with expression of shock at the occurrence of natural disaster, the death toll. So, pressured by the evident expectation of some kind of emotional reaction, I widened my eyes to a suitable degree of impressedness , nodded with as straight a face as I could manage, and bit my my lip - I was about to start making one of those highly inappropriate and irreverent comments that I invariably let loose when faced with some crisis.
Presumably, I really ought to be a lot more serious about death, and treat it with the respectable level of sombre gravity that it deserves. But the way I see it, death is a tragedy only to those it directly touches. They are the ones who feel the pain and anguish. To everyone else, the presence of death probably leads to an inward sigh of relief and celebration of life: Thank goodness it wasn't me. So all the posing, and mournful expressions are almost a mockery of what the deceased's loved ones are going through.
I remember my first funeral when I was 10, or maybe younger. I was dragged unwillingly to the funeral of this distant relative I never even knew I'd had. It was an awful traditional Chinese funeral, the kind where they burn paper gold, and cardboard representations of material goods, so that the deceased may have all his/her worldly luxuries in the Underworld. This one was complete with an ornate double-story cardboard mansion, limousine and servant, every luxury the Dead would dream of having in his Afterlife, with an impressive level of detail - down to the television remote control. One wonders what that poor relative of mine must be feeling right now, with the new Dead waltzing into the Netherworld with iPods, PSPs, and the latest in digital technology. [example of my very rude, irreverent remarks at inopportune moments]
So there I was, in the the early 90s, inspecting the gargantuan confection that was the offering to Mr Dead Guy with somewhat incredulous but quite a bit impressed eyes, my mind noisy with wry comments that the impish observer in me spits out. Then I looked around the funeral hall, and the giant gazebo outside, at the adults in dark colours, all trying to look suitably depressed, and I wondered how many of them actually knew this dead man enough to care, and how many were there out of a sense of duty and were just dying to get the entire ceremony over and done with so that they could get on with their errands and with the business of Living. I thought about how maybe just a handful of people would actually feel a gap in their lives by the departure of this man - and them, I wish well - but for the rest, the long faces were just an act, social etiquette, and they all had to be careful to be tippy-toe, sombre, and proper. And scarilegiously, I wanted to burst out laughing. But even the kid that I was, I knew how to bite back my laughter and put on my best mourning face, which made the situation even more ironic.
Twice more since then, has Death struck my family. Several years ago, a maternal cousin died in an accident. And a couple of years back, my grandmother passed away. In both cases, when I was told about the deaths, I was struck by the blankness that followed the announcement.
I know that there are supposed to 5 stages of grief:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
What I find disconcerting is that I seem to skip the first 4 stages and go right to Acceptance. "Ah-Ho ko-ko died in a car crash? Oh. Okay.", "Ah-Na passed away? Oh. Okay." In the first case, I remember feeling a faint regret that I did not feel more than a faint regret. In the second case, I remembered examining my emotions quizzically: did I feel sad? The answer that the pale, contemplative me came back with: No, not really. I feel almost like a bystander. Death does not touch me.
Perhaps my unfeelingness can be excused by the fact that I wasn't close to my cousin. We used to play together in a big raggedy crowd as children. But he was far older than I, and I would only visit my maternal family home once a year, if that. And as the years went by, as the only one of the cousins on the maternal side of the family living in the capital city, speaking English at home, with the working middle class emphasis on education, I became further and further removed from my Hokkien-speaking, more rough and ready boy cousins. Being painfully shy, and hampered by my inability to speak Hokkien, didn't help to bridge the gap that had cracked wide open between us with the passage of time. I wish very much, that we had stayed the way it was as children. That was one pang of regret I felt when I heard of my cousin's death. I wish we had remained close, maybe then I would have felt sad when he died.
I find it very disturbing that I felt nothing when my family members died. I wonder how much of my unfeelingness can be justified by the distance between my cousin and I, and the expectedness of grandmother's death. She was in her late 80s and stricken with cancer. Or if I have an internal crisis-management mechanism that kicks in that buffers me from pain and feeling. Maybe subconciously, the way I cope is through laughter, or the veneer of sophistication I put on when I make flippant remarks - when in doubt, crack a joke or make an outrageous comment. Not everybody's cup of tea certainly. But I have noticed that I am the worst person at comforting someone. I hate repeating cliches because I think they are hollow or hypocritical ("I know how you feel" - and how Do i? am i a worm in your stomach?, "It's okay" - when i Jolly well Know it's Not okay, "I'm sorry" - does me being sorry make a difference??). So invariably I end up offering food (which is the only way I know how to show I care and to make a tangible difference. Blood glucose levels and endorphins you know), or coming up with outrageous stories, or comments to see the funny side of things. Of course, that always comes out wrongly, and I end up seeming very callous and cold-hearted.
But sometimes, I really think that part of me is immune to certain kinds of feeling. Numb. My ability to feel has been stunted, I feel uncomfortable with specific emotions/events, and that has manifested itself in my detachment and clownish responses.
I think that's enough psycho-analysing of myself for now. But the truth is, I Am disturbed by my apparent unfeelingness. I feel guilt for not feeling sad over the tsunamis. Add that to my two family deaths, and I'm beginning to feel like I'm a cold unfeeling bitch. I mean, I agree whole-heartedly that the tsunami event is a tragedy. It just happens to be removed from me is all. Is it so very abnormal to feel a strange kind of nothing? Or am I just being honest?
