There are things that have happened to me in the past, that for whatever reason, I was strong enough to deal with then. I was surrounded by friends and family, happy in my job, where I was living, and what I was doing with my life, so somehow I had the inner strength to deal with things as they came. Then, when something happens, like now, when my job doesn't fulfill me, when my girlfriend of 6 years tells me she doesn't love me any more, when I'm living in a place I can't really afford and can't fill with my own things anyway, these things come crashing back, I think of them again.

Like now. I'm thinking back to the summer of 1999. My father's parents, Ruth and Cleo Brooks, were in a car accident the march before. My grandfather died in the accident, my grandmother was badly injured and placed into the hospital, under intensive care. My father was on his way to meet them when it happened. I can only imagine what that was like. I was able to deal with the death of my grandfather. I drove to South Dakota with my father, sister, and brother, and met with the rest of the family. I saw my grandfather one last time before I carried him out to the cemetary with my cousins and my brother, and we laid him into the ground. I stood out there in the snow, in the cold South Dakota winter, wearing my grandfather's old trenchcoat, which I still have. I've never worn it since then, but it hangs in my closet and I see it and think of him sometimes. Anyway, I was able to grieve with the rest of my family, and I guess I got over his death. I still think about him sometimes. I guess when your father's father dies, you start to think that someday it will be your father you're standing over, with your son by your side. As long as your grandfather is alive, your father is somehow safe. As I write this, in the winter of 2001, my father is 50 years old. He has heart problems, he smokes, maybe he doesn't take care of himself the way he should. I can't protect him, even if I tried.

In the summer of 1999, I was on a trip to the middle east, a journey that was very important to me, and that is becoming more so as time goes on. My grandmother was still in the hospital at this time, but was recovering, and we all thought she'd be OK. She herself had struggled with depression in recent years, and I worried about her, how she would feel about being left behind, if she'd be able to fight hard enough to come back to health and happiness. While I was gone, she seemed to have recovered, but when she was released from the hospital she died a few days later in the nursing home. I guess I was probably in Jordan at the time, unaware of all of this. No one told me about it, it was one of the first things I found out about when I came back. I guess I kind of put it aside at the time, but it's back now.

How could I not feel guilty about this? While I was exploring a new culture by myself, my grandmother lay dying somewhere, alone, with no one who loved her nearby. I wasn't allowed to be part of the grieving process. When I got back, everyone else had come to terms with it but in some ways I had to deal with it on my own. I'm not angry that no one told me. They thought, rightly, that it would upset me, that it might ruin my joy and excitement on the trip. As guilty as I feel now, how would I have felt when I was on the trip if I had found out? When I woke up in the morning, I would have had to choose: go out into the world and explore this country, go on with my life, or stay here and think about my grandmother and what she meant to me. I would have had to betray her to enjoy the trip. But I would have had a choice. It's like eating a fine meal and finding out later that someone had to die for you to eat it. It wasn't that good, and if you'd known ahead of time, you probably wouldn't have eaten it. It doesn't help much that you couldn't have known the loss that was suffered for your joy. You'd have no chance to make reparations for what had been done.

Maybe it doesn't matter that much. I'm grieving now. If there's nothing after death, then it doesn't matter when I actually grieve, the grieving is for the people who are left on the earth, not for those who died. If she exists in some form now, I can't imagine that she'd hold it against me for waiting 2 years to do this.