Board 8 > How do you deal w/ the death of someone you had a complicated relationship with?

(+) Yeah! (+)

My grandfather passed away this last night/this morning. He was 82. Weirdly, his younger brother died earlier this week.

He had been unwell for a while, following a heart attack in the early fall, and had been in and out of hospital/nursing home/rehabilitation in the intervening time. Ultimately, it was the flu that killed him. He went to bed last night and they realized he had passed sometime around midnight.

He and my grandmother moved to Florida shortly after I was born, so we were never as close as I am with my dad's parent's. We'd see each other for parts of a few weeks every summer, when they would escape the Florida summer for New England, and when I was younger, on occasional family vacations to Florida (the last one was just before 9/11).

Those visits were sometimes fraught with tension, especially as we both got older. He had a bad temper and it was impossible to know how long the fuse was at any given time. During the World Cup in 2006, he asked what the appeal of soccer was, and after explaining it to him, he became incensed, calling me a whole bunch of things: rude, a know-it-all, 'some kind of wise guy' and said he was going to 'beat the snot outta [me]. This was in my living room, in front of my parents, my grandmother, and my brother, and the previous night I had given up my bed and slept on the couch so my grandparents had a place to sleep. Being 18 (and having a fairly long history of getting in fights at that point), I stood up to him and he stormed out. The event has never been spoken of since.

That's one of the worst examples, but he had a tendency to behave this way towards me, and only towards me. When I graduated high school (and college), my grandparents sent cards with some cash. When my brother and each of my cousins graduated from high school and/or college, they flew up for the ceremony and the party. He's never had any issues with my brother, and my cousins have generally dismissed anything I've asked them as if my questions are outlandish or groundless. I know he and my mom sometimes had issues when they were younger, but she'll never talk about them, to me or to anyone else.

But at the same time, I have these good memories, too. He was there when I was at my first Red Sox game. I sat between him and my dad. I remember going to Busch Gardens in Tampa when I was little and going on rides with him (and being amazed that he would go on the big, scary rides that I couldn't go on because I was too small, even though at 5'3", he wasn't that big himself). Golfing with him as a kid in Maine when Air Force One zoomed maybe a hundred or so feet above us to land at the adjacent airport.

I don't know if I would say I love(d) him. Maybe when I was young, I guess. It's not like I didn't want to love him, but he made it so incredibly difficult sometimes. I'm sure I didn't always make things easier for myself, either, but still.

I've been typing this piecemeal throughout the day, not even knowing whether or not I'd hit the post button at the end. It's weird, being in a position where no one I'm close to really empathizes with me. My dad, having a level of distance by virtue of it not being his father, understands that grampy wasn't always kind to me, but that's kind of the extent of his understanding of things.

I don't know what any of you guys have experienced, but if any of you have been through anything similar, I'm all ears.
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Dance in the street like you did when Scalia died
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You just gotta feel what you feel. Sometimes we expect to react in a certain way and when we don't, we try to force different feelings from ourselves because it's what's "right". You'll be thinking about him but he wasn't a (positive) part of your life for many years, sounds like, and you came to terms a long time ago with that. A death will always have some level of impact on you, but that doesn't mean you have to feel any one way or another.

I think during the death of my own grandfather I was mostly... serene? I don't know if that's the word. I was upset, of course, but he had been so far gone for such a long time, that I couldn't really bring myself to feel much of anything. The person I loved hadn't been there for a while. I felt solemn about it mostly, and it was a time to reflect. I remember him fondly.
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Up.
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You are definitely your grandfather's grandson.
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I didn't have a good relationship with my grandfather. He seemed to be very dismissive of me and never interacted with me much. But he died when I was 14, and I was not really old enough to think about what that meant. I did not have a lot of good memories so I did not have much of a reaction.

I don't really know what it's like to go through what you have
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Not trying to sound crass, but is there really anything to deal with? A person in your family died who you didn't love or feel particularly close to. You also didn't hate him from what I can gather. Sounds like you're expecting to feel some way and are looking for someone to tell you how you should feel, when indifference is totally fine and normal. It's just another thing that happened.
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I have not had to deal with this, but know that it is coming with my own dad.

What I can figure out so far is that you don't have any obligations toward the guy. Either to feel anything or do anything or even the deal with it at all. Just react in the most honest way, and I think you'll get through.
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Its ok to not feel much. I had a better relationship with my grandparents but wasnt that sad when they died because I figured theyre in their 80s, thats a good long life. Everyones different.
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HotDogButts posted...

Not trying to sound crass, but is there really anything to deal with? A person in your family died who you didn't love or feel particularly close to. You also didn't hate him from what I can gather. Sounds like you're expecting to feel some way and are looking for someone to tell you how you should feel, when indifference is totally fine and normal. It's just another thing that happened.

I wouldn't really say that it's indifference, though. It's more like true ambivalence, I guess.
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I mean there's no single "correct" way to deal with it. As Surskit said, just feel what you feel. If he treated you wrong (which it sounds more often than not that he did) then there's nothing wrong with just shrugging your shoulders and moving on. If I were in your position that's probably how I'd react, especially if all of that treatment was unprovoked. If someone won't treat you with respect then they don't deserve your respect, is how I see it.

Of course, the opposite is also fine. If you still are sad about his passing, even if you don't understand why you are necessarily, it's not like there's anything wrong with that either.
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Just let it wash over you. It might take a while before you start to understand your own feelings.

I have a few friends that have talked about parents favoring one child over another. It sounded awful, and don't understand how a grown adult could fued with a child

Regardless, none of the problem was your fault
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This is what we call looking a gift horse in the mouth. You should take it as a blessing that you're not really upset about this. Grieving sucks.
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I guess right as the death happens you try to focus on the good things. It's not as though you can change anything by focusing on the bad memories.

I had this sort of thing happen when my uncle died last year. At the time, I looked at him fondly through the good times we had, but as we get further and further away the horrible things he did have started to gain more weight.
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The decision's a lot easier once you find out what they leave you in their will, I will say that.
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There's no right way to grieve or deal with death. As others have said, just let yourself feel what you feel, and don't guilt yourself into thinking you should feel differently than you do. I had a good relationship with my grandfather as a kid, but I didn't see him much after I grew up. When he died, I actually felt a little guilty that I didn't cry because I thought I was supposed to and should have. There are always things you feel like you wish you had done differently, but don't let them weigh you down. Learn from them and let them impact the relationships you still have with those around you.
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ExThaNemesis posted...

The decision's a lot easier once you find out what they leave you in their will, I will say that.

I should quantify this.

My uncle spent two years telling me he was leaving things for me, my sister, and my niece whom he barely saw for most of his life.

And he left us nothing. I don't care so much about getting nothing, it's the lying.
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Anyway I kind of made this more about me than I should have.

I would say focus in, right now, on those good memories you have so you can get through the week of being around your family and you can sort of vibe with them on all their good memories. Think about the Red Sox game (did they win btw? Yankees won my first game at the Stadium for me.) think about Busch Gardens.

Then give yourself more time to reflect and make your mind up after the week passes.
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I'm pretty sure they won. It was against the Indians. I was super little, so it's hard for me to remember.
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Anyway the thing I'm feeling most is just kind of unsettled. I don't feel good that he's gone, I've grown enough and been to enough therapy to not let the bad things embitter me. I don't feel directly bad that he's gone either, though. Indirectly, I feel bad for my mom and aunts and nana, but mostly I just feel, for lack of a better term, weird
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