Graceful Degradation: Not Logged On Yet

My maternal grandmother, my grandfather, my paternal grandmother, my aunt. Four people close to me have died, and I wasn't there for any of them.

My aunt died last night. That phone call is where this accounting began.

01 / Offline | A Node Gone Dark

My maternal grandmother was the first. Her house was where I loved going as a kid, and most of my childhood happiness lives there. The news reached me in the afternoon. Even if I'd left right away, I couldn't have arrived until the next morning. By the time I got back, the funeral would have been over.

When my grandfather died, my dad told me he'd already gone stiff by the time they found him. He was cremated that same day.

My grandmother died during the pandemic. Dad said, "Don't come back. You'd be put in isolation, and you wouldn't get to see anything anyway."

My aunt died last night.

Around nine, my dad called. He's my stepfather. He doesn't call me unless something's wrong.

I picked up, and he asked, "Are you at work, or off today?"

"Off," I said.

In a very even voice, he said, "Your aunt has passed away."

My grandfather, my grandmother, and my aunt were all on my birth father's side. She was my birth father's older sister, so she and my stepfather weren't related by blood. He called anyway. "She's your aunt, so I figured I should let you know. You're far away, no need to rush back. I can handle things here. Don't worry about the vigil."

When he mentioned the vigil, his voice caught.

He said he'd handle it. That was what he said.

"Okay," I told him. "Got it."

Then he hung up.

In that moment, I didn't feel all that sad. It was as if something had stopped working. The news came in, and hardly anything stirred.

If I were truly cold, I probably wouldn't remember that my grandfather was already stiff when they found him. I wouldn't have sat there counting how many days of quarantine it would take when my grandmother died. I wouldn't have heard that catch in my dad's voice when he mentioned the vigil.

I remember all of it, and I never went back, not once.

That night, in the small hours, I told someone about all four of them, in bits and pieces, for a long time. Somewhere in the telling, I started weighing myself. Four times I stayed away, and the tally is right there. As for whether I'm cold, no one has ever ruled on that. I'm the one who came up with the word.

I don't know what it means, not being there for a funeral.

02 / Family | The Ones Who Stayed

Every time, someone was there. When my maternal grandmother died, it was my aunt and uncle on my mom's side. For my grandfather, my grandmother, and my aunt, it was my uncles and aunts on my birth father's side. Someone made the calls, someone kept vigil, someone handled the paperwork. There was always somebody to pick it up.

Four funerals, and nothing went wrong. I wasn't there, and the family didn't stall.

I've been independent since I was a kid, and I never felt very attached to home. When I grew up, I wanted out of the countryside, to see what was out there. In my twenties I started working and earning, trying to make up for what I'd missed as a child. I figured I'd get on my feet out there first, and deal with everything else later.

By thirty, things had settled down, and I was still more comfortable being away. I used to find ways to dodge New Year's Eve dinner. In recent years, as everyone my age started families, it dawned on me that my parents were getting older and the house was quiet at the holidays. When I go back, I see them sitting apart, each looking at a phone. Whether they feel empty inside, I can only guess.

It's not that I've never gone back.

Once, my mother was rushed to the ER in the middle of the night. My phone was on silent and I missed the call. I woke up to a string of missed calls, took time off, bought a ticket, and flew home. By the time I got there, she was stable.

At the most urgent moment, I wasn't there. When I found out, I went.

There's another layer between my dad and me.

My birth father died in an accident when I was six. A year later, my stepfather came into our home. My birth father was away most of the time, working to support us, and he rarely spent time with me. What I remember are a few bad scenes: I acted up, and he locked me in the pigsty. I acted up again, and he made me kneel on a washboard. Once, when my mom was late with dinner, he came in and kicked the pot of chicken stew off the stove.

I don't hate him for it.

I love him.

He was gone, but the money came.

My dad now, my stepfather, I can't read. He doesn't say much, and he doesn't fuss over me. What his love looks like, I don't know.

Maybe my birth father taught me one way a family could work: you're out in the world, and you send money home. When I left home and went off to work, I seem to have followed the same pattern. Whatever happens at home, I always hear about it. I'm just usually not there.

I didn't choose it. I just never said the words: "I'm coming home."

03 / Standby | Next on Call

"Graceful degradation" seems to fit my family, in a way.

When software can't cope, it shuts off nonessential features to protect the core. When my grandmother died, my dad said, "Don't come back." This time, "No need to rush back." The family graciously let me off, and I graciously agreed: "Okay, got it." The cost was that no one ever said they couldn't take it.

What I still haven't worked out is whether the family let me off the hook, or whether I stepped out on my own first.

Dad can't step away. He stays and deals with one thing after another that someone has to deal with. I left that spot long ago, but I keep getting the notifications. The phone rings and I know what happened. The call ends and life goes back to its usual track.

Sometimes I wonder whether there are two kinds of calm. One is truly not letting it get to you. The other is knowing exactly how heavy something is and still doing what needs doing. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs.

I don't know which kind I am.

I used to think that once I'd made something of myself out there, I'd be able to face things at home with ease. Once I was settled at work, once I'd become more of a grown-up, I'd finally handle everything I'd been putting off. But I never set a finish line for "making it." As long as I didn't feel ready, I could keep pushing it back.

Going home has been the same. I keep penciling it into some plan, as if there'll be one visit where I spend enough time with everyone and make up for all the times I missed.

But people don't wait forever.

Down the road, the one making the phone calls will probably be me. Dad will get older, and one day he won't be able to handle all this. Someone in the family will have to take over.

I don't know whether, when that day comes, I'll still say "Okay, got it" first.

This time, though, I'm starting to see that I can't keep putting going home off until later.

The family is still running, and Dad is still handling things. I've never really stepped into the process, and I kept assuming I had time.

When the call ended, the system was still up.

I still hadn't logged on.