A Sense of Loss

My father is ill. He is in the hospital

I am supposed to be concerned. Worried. Afraid. Sad.

Something.

I am not.

Neither am I glad.

I am just....aware of it.

This is not a delayed reaction. This is my full reaction. "Okay."

Chief among the emotions I am not good with is grief. I just don't feel it. Perhaps at most, an absence. A space where a person once was. A lack of reaction where it once existed.

But it is not in me to break down. To cry over a lost person.

I mourn, yes, but in my own way. A recognition of the person and their life. And that is it.

Is my father dying? I don't know.

Am I worried? For the way it will effect the future, effect my mother (her ability to live in her own home, her ability to survive without him guiding her steps).

But do I worry that my father will be gone? No.
Do I worry what my last words to him were? No. They are not important. I have said all I need to say to him. I have told him I no longer blame him, that I love him, that I don't hate him. If he doesn't know these things, it is not my fault, for I have said them.

And last words are not important. They are a moment in time that only seems important because of what happens next. But they themselves are just normal expressions of everyday life. The everyday that exists before, and eventually after, death. Right up until that moment that death walks in. They are just words.

Will I miss him? No. I have not missed my father for a long time. I didn't want a life with his constant presence, I don't have one now, and I won't have one regardless of the future.

I am cold, yes. Heartless? Maybe. I don't understand love, true.

But this event won't change the shape of me.

I do, however, find myself missing a particular person. One who will confirm that my reaction is allowed. One whose opinion I measure as equal to my own. One who I care about more than I should.

To miss the one and not the other?

Heartless.