I joined the Diary-L mailing list yesterday. I knew it would be a fairly busy list, but I had over fifty messages when I logged in this morning! Yike!

Quite a bit of the action on the list right now is devoted to an argument. To be fair, there's astonishingly little flaming going on, though everyone seems to be reading the letter rather than the spirit of everyone else's posts. They all seem to agree, actually, and they're arguing over semantics. (For those of you not on the list who are curious, the major point seems to be that someone who deserves your respect after they're dead probably deserved your respect during their life as well, and that the only additional respect that being dead should get them is out of sympathy for the loved ones left behind.)

The first time I encountered the death of a human (as opposed to the death of bugs and various non-cuddly pets such as goldfish and hermit crabs) was when I was nine. A boy in my class at school had been attacked, choked into unconsciousness, and abandoned face-down in a ditch. His name was Paul, though I don't remember his last name. I felt terrible when it finally sank in, not because he had died, but because I hadn't liked him at all, and my first thought when the principal told us he was dead was, "Oh, good." Guilt dogged me for a long time, until I finally came to the conclusion years later that it was the sort of thing that someone might think before the enormity of the situation closed in, and let it go.

When I was in the sixth grade, my maternal grandmother died. Grandma Waters had been very sick for a very long time - she had had terribly disfiguring arthritis for as long as I'd known her, and every time we went to visit, she seemed a little weaker. I remember two things about her death. The first is that my dad took John and I to visit her in the hospital one weekend when we were pretty sure the end was near. I had been taking a class in calligraphy, and wanted to take a sample of my work to show her, and Dad told me that I should leave it behind. I don't remember what the reason was, but I got the impression that it was frivolous and vain of me to show off when she was so sick. What I remember about that incident most vividly is him admitting later that he should have let me bring it - that Grandma would have enjoyed it. The other thing I remember is wondering if something was wrong with me, because I never once cried. I was sad, and I was sorry I'd never see her again, but I couldn't cry after we saw her in the hospital, and I couldn't cry when Mom called a few days later to tell us that she had died, and I couldn't cry at the funeral. I suppose everyone around me assumed that I was too young to really understand what was going on, and maybe that's it. But everyone around me was crying or sniffling or at least had red eyes, and even though I tried, I couldn't.

What I remember about her life is a backscratcher, which she had to use to scratch the top of her head, and green-apple candies, which she liked to eat and would share with my brother and I. (I remember more, but those two memories are the essence of my grandmother to me.)

My Grandad Waters died when I was a sophomore in college. His decline had been slow and ugly. When we went to see him in the hospital, I remember him getting angry at the nurse because she wouldn't take the respirator tube out of his throat so he could say goodbye. When I understood that this really was the last time, I got angry, too. The respirator was only going to keep him alive a few more days, and everyone in the room knew it. I remember being furious that they wouldn't allow him to pass with dignity, or to tell his children and grandchildren that he loved them. I remember there being a bit of a scandal at the funeral home because his girlfriend insisted on being part of the receiving line. (I remember wishing that he'd given her a ring, at least, so that we'd know where she stood in his life.) I remember that I cried when his brother spoke a private eulogy at the memorial dinner before the funeral, but couldn't summon up any tears at the funeral itself. I remember thinking about how terribly proud he was that I was in college and planning on majoring in math, and promising myself that I would offer a toast to him when I graduated.

What I remember most about his life is that while I was in college, he would send me newspaper clippings and cash. I must have once mentioned the money to my mother, and she must have fussed at him about it, because I remember most vividly a fifty-dollar bill stapled to a newspaper clipping on which he had written "Don't tell your mother." (He only wrote infrequently. Mostly it was just clippings and cash.) It's a silly memory, but I kept the secret. Years later, I told Dad about it. And I remember how proud he was of me. He had never gone to college, and I think he was tickled pink that a descendant of his would not only go to college (my mother has a Master's degree, so that wasn't new) but major in something that he perceived as terribly difficult.

Anyway, since reading that thread on Diary-L, I've been thinking about them. There you go.