the mortal condition
Jul. 11th, 2002 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fictionali'm still exhausted.
i found out yesterday that my grandfather fell in the courtyard outside his house yesterday. apparently he's broken his skull. he's still alive, and probably will continue so for some time (though this seems strange to me.) but he's in terrible amounts of pain, and is screaming. this frightens me. i've seen him yell in rage, but never scream with pain. not even when we set off a fire cracker too near him on Diwali years ago and it hit him in the ass and we had to dig it out. there was blood everywhere when he fell. my whole family is in shock.
i don't like my grandfather too much, really. he's not a good man. but i don't like to think of him screaming in agony. and i feel even worse for my grandmother who is the closest thing i know of to a saint and refuses to delegate her "duties" to anyone, and sits by his side all night, not sleeping, and taking care of him. and my mother, who is worried and afraid, because despite it all, he's her father and she loves him. she tells me that he provided for them, went without food when they were hungry, worked hard to support them, let her go to the United States to study, didn't try to marry her off. and though this doesn't make up for the occasional insults, lack of showed affection, and his reactionary tendencies, there is still love there. and she's frightened. she can't go to India...she can't afford the ticket, or the price of the time off. i wish there was something i could do.
d. isn't feeling well either, and though it's nothing at all serious (i don't think) i feel assaulted by mortality and human frailty on all sides. i don't like it. i can deal with it in my own body, i came to grips with my own fragily body long ago, and while i'm not at peace with it, it does not fill me with mindnumbing terror. but for those i love, i have a knot of fear in my chest, right between my breasts, under my rib cage. it's silly and without reason, but that's the way of all fear, i suppose.
i found out yesterday that my grandfather fell in the courtyard outside his house yesterday. apparently he's broken his skull. he's still alive, and probably will continue so for some time (though this seems strange to me.) but he's in terrible amounts of pain, and is screaming. this frightens me. i've seen him yell in rage, but never scream with pain. not even when we set off a fire cracker too near him on Diwali years ago and it hit him in the ass and we had to dig it out. there was blood everywhere when he fell. my whole family is in shock.
i don't like my grandfather too much, really. he's not a good man. but i don't like to think of him screaming in agony. and i feel even worse for my grandmother who is the closest thing i know of to a saint and refuses to delegate her "duties" to anyone, and sits by his side all night, not sleeping, and taking care of him. and my mother, who is worried and afraid, because despite it all, he's her father and she loves him. she tells me that he provided for them, went without food when they were hungry, worked hard to support them, let her go to the United States to study, didn't try to marry her off. and though this doesn't make up for the occasional insults, lack of showed affection, and his reactionary tendencies, there is still love there. and she's frightened. she can't go to India...she can't afford the ticket, or the price of the time off. i wish there was something i could do.
d. isn't feeling well either, and though it's nothing at all serious (i don't think) i feel assaulted by mortality and human frailty on all sides. i don't like it. i can deal with it in my own body, i came to grips with my own fragily body long ago, and while i'm not at peace with it, it does not fill me with mindnumbing terror. but for those i love, i have a knot of fear in my chest, right between my breasts, under my rib cage. it's silly and without reason, but that's the way of all fear, i suppose.
