My Last Grandmother

I'm not even sure how to begin this post. My dad's mom died a few days ago, and her funeral is this Saturday. I'm not upset nor heartbroken over this. I feel bad for my dad and his sisters. I wonder if that makes me a bad person. I was never that close to her even though she's always lived a few miles away my whole life. I was very close to my mom's parents who lived 2 houses down from us. They were a daily part of my life until they passed away in 1992. I miss them dearly. But it makes me smile to know that they are getting to enjoy their great-granddaughter every day in heaven. But my dad's mom, Grandma Lillie Bea, was never around except for holidays and some Sundays at church. She never came to visit us that I remember. Every Mother's Day, the occasional birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas we went to see her. We would spend most of the time watching her old black and white TV that was always tuned to soap operas or some old music program. She usually had a pound cake and a ham in the kitchen. We would eat some cake, and then watch her open her gifts. She would always give us each a card with a couple of buck in it. And then we would go home. That's about it. Even when I was younger I never truly felt like I was her granddaughter. I'd look around her house that was filled with pictures of my cousins, but only 1 of me from when I was 3. There was a picture of my brother that was fairly recent, but not of me. I took tons of pictures while I was growing up so why wasn't I on display like my cousins? It's amazing what you remember years later. I distanced myself from several members of my family after Madison's death. Anyone that didn't call or at least acknowledge her existence and death was written out of my life. I stopped visiting on holidays. I didn't even go by when she started to get really sick. She stayed in the hospital for a long time and we've been expecting her to pass away several times. I pushed past my anger and I did go by on Christmas with my family this past year. That's the last time I saw her alive. Maybe it will hit me at the funeral. Maybe I'll start feeling something then.