Guilty, doubled

I got a long-distance phone call from my mom last Friday night with sad news that my grandfather, the father of my mom, just passed away. My mom was hardly able to speak in the phone. I could only caught pieces of sentences in between her sobs. I tried to calm her down and comfort her while I was trying to recover from the shocking news. I guess that I went numb at that moment because I didn't cry, not that I was holding it, until the very end of the phone conversation of about forty minutes.


I felt guilty. As soon as I hung up the phone, I felt guilty b/c I, as the ONLY child in the family, could not be there with my mom during the hardest time for her since my dad passed away. I know that she needs nothing more than a hug from me NOW, but I can't because I am so far away, separated by the Pacific, from her. I never feel myself as so HELPLESS.

While I was blaming myself for not being with my mom, all of a sudden, it occurred to me that my first feeling about the news had not been feeling sad about my grandfather's death. I was shocked though later I realized that it was not surprising given the kind of grandfather-grandchild relationship b/w us. My grandfather and I were never close at all in my whole life. I am not sure about him thoughts. For me, I just behaved as a well-behaved grandchild, visiting them regularly, helping with some housework during my visit, calling them regularly while I am abroad... Although this sounds cold-blooded, he is someone whom I care about simply because he is my mom's father. It was more about blood-bond than emotion-bond. In addition, my mom is a very filial daughter, I believe that I must have inherited part, if not all, of the virtue from her. Anyway, I didn't feel so sad about his death because we were never close enough, which ironically seems not too bad at this moment because I would feel less pain now.

I dwelt on this point for a while and felt overwhelmed with guilty, doubled guilty.