My inner Greek chorus of madmen HATES not telling him, because they want a cookie for their good deed.

I totally get this way myself. The best solution I have found is the mirror conversation. I tell the story to an imaginary audience, in minute detail, out loud and with extravagant embroidery...sometimes over and over. I'm not sure why, but it helps me to expend the desire for affirmation.

In any case, you get massive props from me, for what that's worth.

My grandma entered the hospital May 24th for aortic valve replacement surgery. She never left the hospital again. It turns out she had something else going on that they discovered while monitoring her after surgery and just one thing after another happened. (I'll never again doubt the "one thing after another" scenarios on House M.D.)

My grandma died at 1am this morning. She was the last of my grandparents surviving. I'm alright because I've felt a bit distant for a while but my mom is going to be a wreck. I will be as supportive to her as I can but I feel guilty. As if not being as wrecked about it as she is makes me a bad person.

I'm sorry, Spidra. Much peace to you and your mom.

Many sympathies, Spidra and family. And don't feel guilty. We all react in our own ways.

Smonster, I know...some of these people do not know how to chat.I told one of them once that if some guy talked to his sister like he just talked to me, he would kick that man's ass. But, hello, every woman is *somebody's* daughter, isn't she? I mean, I'm not a Wendy Shalit wannabe or anything, but what happened to coffee and talking about your favorite movies before you get to the porny stuff?

Spidra, I'm so sorry for your loss. Please don't feel guilty - you feel what you feel. It's how you treat your mom now when she needs you that means more.

When I leave here, I am taking my client to jail so he can be arrested. Which is the law at work but it still is a crappy way to start the week.

Your client has good representation. And that is nothing to be sneezed at. But you are right, it is a crappy way to start the week.

When my uncle Larry died, my sister and cousins were a mess- aside from one short, hot, furious burst as they were removing his breathing tube. I felt like a robot, but at least I was able to make reservations and give our orders at the bar and stuff.

At the funeral service, though, that was another matter altogether. That was a couple weeks later though.

I was talking about this reaction with my dad a month ago (it's been touch and go with her for months now). I've lost grandparents, an infant brother and an uncle (who was murdered). Yet it always feels kind of distant to me. It's not that I didn't love any of these people at all. I don't remember exactly, but I'm sure I must have cried at my uncle's death - the murder was so shocking. But otherwise I've been pretty dry. The funeral where I most lost it was a funeral for a friend of my brothers'. He had been driving a car my brother was in. He fell asleep at the wheel and wasn't wearing a seatbelt. He woke up, overcorrected, hit a ditch and the car rolled. He went right through the windshield. My brother was wearing a seatbelt and woke up upside-down still strapped in his seat. Injured but alive. I think the reason this friend's funeral broke me up so much was because it felt like a close call for my brother and because the friend was his mother's only child.

Seriously, people, wear your seatbelt. My uncle (mentioned above) was a quadriplegic for 30 years because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt and had his head and neck locked under the steering wheel for about 6 hours after his car rolled off the road.

Think on that when you think your seatbelt is uncomfortable or annoying.

Seriously, people, wear your seatbelt.

Totally. Also, wear a helmet while riding a bike or motorcycle. I shudder to think how much worse my bike accident would have been had I not been wearing a helmet.