Emotions Not Included

A happy corvid getting a sprinkler shower at the same time as a happy bath.

Wow, I barely know where to start. I'm kind of still blown away right at this second.

Let me start pleasant. I feel better. Not hundred percent well, but considerably better than yesterday, and the day before. Plus the health dept doctor just called to check up on Jim and I. Everyone is fine, even if Jim is a little stir crazy from not being able to drive out.

Our gardener worked today. I stayed far away and waved through the window, and Jim tried to keep the six feet. We called and explained the quarantine situation, but he still came. He still wanted the work, even while he was joking about making iguana soup. The workers in this part of the world are feeling the border shut down and lack of tourists acutely, so we're still having the folks that work for us keep doing their jobs just so they'll have some money.

It's all good, at least right up until I started fielding phone calls from Louisiana relatives. There are certain area codes, 225, 504, or 985, that pop up on my phone and I cringe because I know these calls are very problematic relatives I have little to do with.

One of the few elderly relatives I keep up with I have to steel myself not to react if she quotes Fox News, or makes borderline racist statements. Heard from her today. Very quick call to let me know she was okay. Fine. Great. No Trump talk and intoxicants were not involved.

Then I hear from my elderly aunties in the New Orleans area and find out what elderly relative #1 is up to.

Her next door neighbor, who I know slightly, killed his two older step daughters and himself. Shot all of them the day after his wife died. She never mentioned this to me, even if I know the man. She was calm and pleasant like nothing had happened.

And that's what the aunties are upset about. One of them had talked to this relative yesterday, said there was crazy amounts of background noise, asked the relative what was going on, and this relative said in voice you'd use if you were discussing the weather,  with about as much emotion as someone at the DVM calling out ticket numbers that, "Oh, Mr. Jimmy just killed himself and his step daughters  and the cops and news helicopter are making the noise". She apparently turned the conversation right back to some rather mundane every day topic.

This man mows her yard for thirty years, and was a friend, worked with her, brought her holiday goodies and she cannot even scare up enough emotion to say 'Oh how sad!' just right back to bitching about the costs of food at the grocery store and the traffic in town?

I cannot fathom that. As much as I bitch and moan about various people and things here at the bottom I am still deeply affected when these things happen to people I know well, even if I didn't much care for them in life. Even people merely associated with those I love, like the death of one of my kids friends mother, or when Jim's friends die. It always makes me reflect on the shortness of life, that love is the only thing that matters in the long run, and leads me to send at quick prayer/good vibes out for the those broken hearted who are left behind.

It's the living survivors who suffer. This guy, by his actions, created a huge pool of the broken hearted. Both step daughters were in their 40s to 50s, left behind grown married children, and grandchildren. A lot of lives touched by grief. A broken heart that broke even more hearts.

I had to tell my aunts that I think this relative's lack of emotions and care, stem from the horrible childhood that she experienced in my Cajun family of origin. Something more than the drunken dysfunction of her parents. Something bad enough to make her disassociate so stronger every time something very bad happens. Makes me feel sorry for her. I cannot imagine a life where you do not get to experience the full range of your own emotions, for good or bad. It's not much of a life.

Here's what the chief of police had to say about this tragedy in the papers.

"I ask that you pray for the family, victims, police officers, the EMS workers, the fire department.  It's tough right now," the police chief said.
Referencing the strain of everyone as stay at home orders have kept people inside amid ongoing fear of coronavirus spreading, he continued, "This has been going on for three weeks now; It's tough out there.  But, I ask that you pray for their families."