Great Grandma Dorothy is dead. It is funny, even now the first thing I think of when I hear that is “Ding dong, the witch is dead” from The Wizard of Oz. I know it is not exactly the most appropriate thing to say or even think of in that sort of situation, heck she was not even that bad of a person. In fact, although I may have a shoddy memory, I do know that she was a wonderfully nice and kind lady. Which only makes me wonder more why one of the only things I can remember about her is her funeral. Or more specifically, not being there.

I remember grey. The building was grey. The sky was grey. The sidewalk was grey. The parking lot was grey. Everything was grey. Even the grass was tinged with grey. I was wearing a dress, horrible I know, but it was not grey. It had color, I cannot remember what, and a little flower on the left-hand side of the chest. I sat on the edge of the sidewalk, my feet planted on the grey concrete of the parking lot, with my knees up to my chest, and my arms wrapped around them. Waiting. For what, I do not know. The swings in the playground behind a chainlink fence creaked as they moved slightly in the breeze. It was cold. I was cold. I had no jacket or other to cover myself with, so I sat on the grey sidewalk. And was cold.

I know you are supposed to be sad at funerals. It is supposed to be all “Oh woe is me, they’ve passed. Oh whatever shall we do!” With lots of crying and eulogies about how amazing and wonderful whoever died was, even if you did not know them. Right? But I do not remember being sad, out on that grey sidewalk. I do not remember feeling much of anything for that matter. I just sat there with no purpose or reason other than to wait. I was not sitting there because I was sad or lonely or depressed. I just did not feel like standing. And so I sat.
It was the first death I had experienced, to my knowledge, and yet I think it was the only one I did not cry about. Not even in private or behind closed doors. I was young. I did not have the same view of death as I do now. And yet my view of death constantly changes, as I believe it does for all people. The death of some homo sapiens may not bother me in the slightest, but then the deaths of some creatures not of my species affect me rather greatly.

A few years after Great Grandma Dorothy, my pet ferret -no, not pet, friend- Cinnamon died. I cried for months after that. I even slept next to her dead body the night after she died. I remember playing with her in the bathroom after I had taken a shower. I stepped on her while she was under the towel and it killed her. I felt guilty. I hid her body under a basket. It was my fault. I was reason she was dead. I had killed her. That was the first real death in my opinion. That was the first time I really understood what it meant to loose someone close to you.

I did not cry over another human. I cried over someone not human. That does not make me, myself, any less human. It does not mean that I am not compassionate towards people. It simply means that I shared a more profound bond with that ferret than I did with my Great Grandmother. It goes to show that it matters not what or who someone is. All that matters is what you feel towards that someone.

If you were to ask me about emotions such as love and joy and sadness, I would tell you that they are just chemicals. Your brain is just secreting chemicals that make you “feel” a certain way. They are not necessarily genuine. But really, I know. There are different versions of emotions. Different kinds of love. Different types of sadness. It is all relative to who you are and the situations you are in. I felt a different love towards my Great Grandmother and Cinnamon. I felt a different version of sadness when they died. I experienced a different joy when they were alive. It does not mean I love or miss either of them any less. They were different people. I interacted with them differently. I remember them differently. Each in their own way.