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The Zomblog: Regarding Myanmar, China, and other tragedies

Before I begin this blog let me preface everything with the fact that I do care about people, that the pain of the world does bring me down, and I am not heartless even though my humor does not always appear as such.

There is a certain personality trait I carry and it is most certainly more a product of nurture rather than nature. This trait is a combination of my perspective, my humor and most importantly the influence my father and uncle. I do not quite know if there is a specific terminology for it, but it is in reference to how I handle death.

My grandfather on my father’s side passed away on April 8th, 2004. I cried the night when it occurred due to being stricken with extreme guilt from spending my grandfather’s last week on this planet in Arizona hanging out with my best friend during Spring Break. Granted, I did not know that he was in such a state, my mother did not call me until I was driving home from Arizona that day and how could I have known that he would go less than three hours after I received the call, but still…

His funeral was on April 19th and the whole family was there…all twelve if you include my grandparents on the other side and four relatives we had never met before. Massive family tree eh? Here comes the personality trait… While at the funeral service my father, uncle, brother and I were standing around cracking jokes the whole time about grandpa being dead, the way my grandmother was acting, and various other things relevant to our current situation. At one point, my grandmother said something to the lady who worked at the mortuary/funeral home, “His make-up is horrible. I was expecting him to look more alive.” You can imagine the field day my family had with that one. Furthermore, the gentleman presiding over the ceremony played a Hank Williams record stating that the tune was one of my grandfather’s favorite as well as some Christian music. He seemed to forget to mention that the whole twenty-two years of my life that I knew him we never heard any of the aforementioned played at all.

I digress. The point I am trying to make is that there will be a lot of articles written by your’s truly and some of it may come off as off-color, too soon, or too sensitive in light of recent events and it is not because I am heartless or cold. I, due to the way in which I was raised, react to death, destruction, despair, and abomination with humor because it is the only way I know how. It is all that I have seen. It is the only way I can cope.

Tags: Act of God, Catastrophe, China, Myanmar, Tragedy