How to live with his highness...aka Sebastian

Memory and Affect

So for my HT100 class we're doing a lot of readings on emotion and memory and it's been grounded for me in something going on in my personal life right now which I've decided to share and maybe work through a bit here. I should preface this by saying that in my 28 years, no one in my family has been seriously ill or passed away. A few years ago my Grandfather was diagnosed with Leukemia and while I remember it initially being a huge shock he's still in relatively great health and, ironically, I think my entire huge extended family, myself included, have gotten "used to" the idea that he would die soon. But, none of us were prepared when last month my Grandmother was diagnosed with Pancreatic and Liver Cancer and given less than 4 months as a prognosis. So, where does memory come into this? Knowing that we're going to lose both of them sooner rather than later has caused this incredible, very positive phenomena among my 7 Aunts and Uncles wherein they've started emailing everyone in the family with their childhood memories. I've learned things about them that I never knew before and my Grandparents in particular seem to enjoy this focus on their past, I think perhaps because the present is so scary to them. They've been married for over 60 years. My Grandmother was 16 when she married my Grandfather and soon he'll be losing that lifelong partner. I find it impossible to fully empathize with that it's just so hard to wrap my mind around, but I'm glad I've gotten a window into their early years together. I took Sebastian down to meet them, he's their 14th great-grandchild and of course he won't remember them, but I wanted this image for him, 4 generations.