My aunt passed away very suddenly last week. For various reasons, I came to an acceptance of her death very quickly, and my grieving process hasn't involved much sadness. The rest of my family is struggling mightily with this, and I'm wondering if I'm a monster for not being more sad. Please help me assess.
My aunt was found dead in her apartment last week. She lived in Calcutta. Medical examiner's report indicates it was likely due to complications from COVID-19. My aunt was afraid of doctors for her whole life and depended on a local homeopath when she was ill. My dad in California had video-chatter with her not long before she passed and he suspected she wasn't well - she looked exhausted and was wheezing. He encouraged her to see an actual doctor, or at least call her niece who lives 15 minutes away from her who is a doctor for some advice, but she did not heed his advice, so here we are.
I used to be close with this aunt when I was younger. However, my father's family is extremely dysfunctional and outright toxic, and dealing with them for much of my life ended up exacerbating what turns out to me a number of mental heath issues I have that I am now finally receiving proper treatment for. I have distanced myself from my father's family considerably as I have worked to get healthy (not hard as I live in New York) - I have an aunt, uncle, and cousin in Europe who I used to correspond with regularly who I now only interact with on birthdays. I haven't been to India in over 15 years. I almost never communicate with my family still in India. I only communicated with my aunt who passed on birthdays as well. I know they have noticed this, because my dad is a big gossip monger and has let slip over the years that the rest of the family often speculates about what my problem is, how I'm making a living, what my life is like. (This is kind of strange because I am Facebook friends with two of my Indian cousins and fairly active there so it wouldn't take much for them to see what I'm up to or interact with me if they wanted to.) My dad's family are also massive triangulators, and the precipitating event(s) that caused me to back away were approximately ten years ago when I found out from European Aunt that my dad complains to everyone that I didn't communicate with him and he didn't know why (he was abusive when I was a child, that's why) and my Younger Aunt (the one who passed) took my dad's side and constantly roasted my supposed selfishness to the rest of the family in India, and then subsequently in a conversation with Younger Aunt found out that European Aunt also talks a lot of shit about me being a typical entitled American, and then subsequently in a conversation with my dad found out that the Indian family has taken to pretending I don't even exist anymore since they don't hear from me (again, weird, because of my connection to two of my cousins on Facebook). After this sequence of triangulated communication that basically everyone in my family dislikes me, I realized that it wasn't worth it to even try to maintain loose ties with them. I have worked on improving my relationship with my dad, as he is my only living parent, and he has mellowed out considerably in his old age and with the influence of my lovely stepmother. However, his family brings out the worst in him, and now that my Younger Aunt has passed away so suddenly, the whole family has been summoned to come together via WhatsApp chat to share memories and process grief by my father. This is planting me smack in the middle of a family dynamic that I have actively and intentionally tried to avoid for my own well-being, and it's stressing me the fuck out. We did an international WhatsApp video call last Saturday spanning four countries and five time zones and it just reminded me again why I stay away.
Some more context and examples of my dad's family's toxicity are in this comment from a recent FPP I made (mods, if this is considered self-linking I'm happy to simply copy-paste that section of my comment here).
(Tangentially, that video call made me hyper-aware of how much of an outsider I am in the context of my dad's family - not only am I the American cousin, but I don't have a post-graduate degree, don't work in a high-paying field, am the only artist (I'm a musician), and most of all - I don't look like them. They all look so much alike - it's so clear that they are a family, those genes are strong... but apparently my late mother's genes were stronger, as I look exactly like her and her family. I felt so self-conscious because of that. I realize this is my own hang-up, but it certainly did not help ease my anxiety in this video chat at all. Half of these people regularly choose to omit me as a member of this family!)
Since that video call, it has become clear to me how much the rest of my family is struggling with my aunt's passing. I reached out to my cousin in Europe, as I've always been closer to him than to the cousins in India, and he told me flat-out that he is still in denial. The Indian cousins were very close to her and they are shattered. My dad was always close to Younger Aunt and he's taking it very badly, wishing he could have somehow intervened to help. My uncle who is the oldest of the siblings in that generation is struggling with the existential crisis that he has somehow outlived his baby sister. And European Aunt is the mastermind of a bizarre alternate theory that Younger Aunt did not die of COVID but of a heart attack and is gaslighting the rest of the family into agreeing with her and has largely succeeded (impressive considering one of that family is a doctor who SPOKE WITH THE MEDICAL EXAMINER), and now the official family story to outsiders is that it was a heart attack. I do not understand why we need to lie, and I refuse to.
But moreover... while I am sad that Younger Aunt passed away, as she was a mostly lovely person (except when she and my dad got together - all they did was talk shit about the rest of the family, their friends, and basically everyone; their negativity just fed off of each other and it made me miserable to be in their presence), and I am angry that she went to a homeopath during a global pandemic and then died of the very disease that comprises said pandemic... I've also come to accept that this is the way it is, and in a perverse way, it's fitting that this is the way she went. She made the same choices about her health that she always did, and thus I feel that she kind of died on her own terms. And I don't want to judge that - how many of us will get to say that when its our time to go? My stepmother once said to me "Character is destiny." I feel that applies perfectly here, and it has helped me keep all of this in perspective.
However, my acceptance and peace with her passing is in stark contrast to the rest of the family, and is another reminder of what an outsider I am. My friends who I've told about this keep checking in on me almost daily, which is sweet and I appreciate their care, but is also a constant reminder that I am not completely broken up with grief, and is making me wonder if there's something wrong with me. Like, am I a monster? Am I a robot? Am I an asshole?
I've dealt with a lot of death in my life - my mother died of cancer when I was very young, I've lost two friends to suicide in the past five years, one friend to COVID last April, and another friend to pneumonia after a bypass procedure in the hospital last summer. I know what grief is. But I just am not feeling the same deep sadness, or crying, or feeling of loss with my aunt as I did in these other circumstances. I feel like by accepting that this is the way she died, I'm accepting her for who she is, and I find that comforting. I am trying to remember my happier memories of her when I was younger and she was less embroiled in the family dysfunction. And I'm doing fine. So I worry that I'm horrifying my friends who are checking in on me by saying "I'm really okay, please don't worry about me."
So. After all this, please, Hive Mind, tell me: Is there something wrong with me that I don't feel more sad? Does any of how I'm currently processing this seem unhealthy or bad? I'm already struggling so much having to be back in the family's orbit - my anxiety has increased and I'm back to taking my anxiety meds 3x a day when I'd finally tapered down to 1 a day IF NEEDED, and feeling like an outsider, and knowing they all view me as an outsider, and my acceptance of my aunts death has me feeling guilty. Am I okay, or am I an asshole? |
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