I believe my grand­moth­er is dying. I don’t have many details, as I haven’t been well informed (though I’m not sure that I want to be). I tried to vis­it about three months ago, but my work and cir­cum­stances pre­vent­ed me from going. I’m going to Hong Kong this Christmas, which should be amaz­ing, and hope­ful­ly I’ll be able to see my grand­moth­er one last time. When I spoke to her on the phone, which is always as awk­ward as ever, she sound­ed very light-head­ed. My moth­er told me that she sound­ed more healthy than before.

I once talked to Ms. Patricia ______ (I can’t believe I for­get her last name) about my grand­par­ents. I told her that I always felt like I loved my grand­par­ents, and that I was always wor­ried about their well-being, even though I nev­er real­ly had a life with them. They briefly raised me when I was too young to remem­ber much. I have always won­dered whether I would cry if they should die. One can always say that one won’t cry, but when the sit­u­a­tion aris­es, things can be quite dif­fer­ent.

I also told her that I hoped that they would die at a time that was con­ve­nient for me. This wor­ried her. I asked myself, “Is this real­ly what I wish? Will I feel dif­fer­ent­ly when the time comes? Have I tru­ly become so cere­bral, so engulfed in a Lermontovian nihilism, that I can say such a thing?”. I’m not even sure if this is some­thing I should be ashamed of. I mean, these are peo­ple that I’m not close to. Is it pos­si­ble to love some­one sim­ply by blood? I believe it is; I know peo­ple who only know how to love by blood. However, it is not pos­si­ble for me. In fact, blood has no bear­ing on what I feel for a per­son. I wish I could even begin to under­stand this. I believe that my grand­par­ents love me. I feel it in the way that they look at me, the way they treat me. I always won­der if any­one else has the same con­fu­sion. Do I love them as they love me?

I can’t tell.