“Grandma died this morning.  Private burial on Sat morning here…graveside only…”

That was the text message I received yesterday and I was emotionless.  Grandma was old and in bad health.  She had alzheimers for the last many years and I – I’ve been so far removed from that part of my ‘family’ that it’s as if I’m watching this death happen in someone elses life.

Odd.

I stopped to contemplate if I should drop my responsibilities (as I was taught to do when a death in the family occurs – family comes first) but in considering this option (yes, I actually had to consider it) the only response I could muster was why? I moved away from home 13 years ago and have scarcely set foot back there since, in that time I have seen this woman once during a family Thanksgiving 2 years ago, even then she didn’t recognize me or know who I was.  I was never close to this woman and despite my many childhood memories spent going to her house for Sunday Morning Breakfasts or Christmas Eve dinners, there is very little else I remember about her, except for my mothers words… “She doesn’t approve of you because we chose to adopt you.”

I don’t know how much truth there ever was in those words or if it was my mothers twisted way being that brought it on, but my memories only reflect a cold and harsh, distant grandmother.  I know she is in a better place now and I feel for the lose of my family that were close to her, but for me, why would I disrupt my life – miss my daughters birthday party Saturday for a woman I feel no attachment too?  I cannot come up with any reason except the misguided sense of obligation to my belief of the word ‘family.’  A family that I am no closer to than most passing faces I see each day.  I am sad, at times, to think this – my childhood, my youth and the life that I knew then is only a box full of memories locked inside my head to collect dust, because there is no one to share them with.