I just got off the phone with my grandmother, my father's mother. A cousin contacted me on Facebook and passed on her number, and I entered it into my phone and let it ride for a couple of weeks, trying to give myself some time for the jimjams to fade. I wasn't nervous about talking to my grandma, exactly - it had been a long while and I was feeling guilty - but my sister and I have both been paralized by the idea of calling her and having my father pick up the phone.
Clearly, I am not as detatched from all that as I thought I was.
It was when I finally made myself acknowledge that I would just be hammered with guilt if I let my fear rule me over this - that I could hear that she had passed away without my ever regaining contact with her - that I picked up the phone and dialed. I didn't get through on the first few calls, but the same cousin said to try in the evening and tonight I got through.
It was a very brief call. Her voice sounded stronger than I had thought it would, and she was delighted to hear from me. We couldn't make much conversation, exactly, but it was contact of some sort and we were both the better for it. This summer, I think my sister and I will try and visit her in St. Louis.
It's hard being cut off from so much of your family, even if you weren't very close. Rifts between my mother's brother and sisters have eradicated my formerly very close friendship with the cousin closest to my age on that side of the family, and meant that most of my cute little cousins I'd occasionally babysit for have grown up strangers. My cousins on my father's side were even more distant - most of them weren't near my age some of them I've never even met. I don't know if there will be any loosening of these knotty feelings if I see any of these family members in person again. Two of them came to my wedding, for cryin' out loud. Why can't this be less stressful and wrenching to think about?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
