I think I was cruel because I stopped caring. I let life happen, and I let life happen to me. It’s what happens when you live fully in the world, with generosity. I got to a point where I figured I couldn’t change who I was, anyway. I felt like sometimes we were this weird couple – a very old woman and a very young woman – who were intertwined and lived off each other. And because of the history of my family, I recognised our coupledom as something that I had to keep, that had to be intrinsic. And there was a long grieving period – very long for me, anyway.
And the odd thing was I was totally prepared for that day. There was no shock, no horror to it all, and very little grief. I thought the death was going to take on mythical proportions, but it didn’t, and it has not. I still was going about most of my business, as normal. I think I had done so much anticipatory grief before her actual death that when the visitation of her death actually came I felt very little, just a great release surge of emotions. It was as if I had healed all of the unspeakable trauma that had happened to me, and to all the generations of my family, and that itself helped with the grieving.