Family is sometimes just a technicality

Yesterday I learned that my father's father is in the hospital due to a stroke. That would make him my grandfather, except I believe that is a title which should be earned. He never earned it in my almost 25 years of living. So when my mom told me the "news" slipped in between bits of other stories and gossip, I really wasn't all that upset. In fact I don't think I was at all. What could I say except, "oh, that sucks." How can I make myself feel for a man I hardly even know? Someone who was more like a ghost in the family, a household name I remember being told was always working when I was barely 3 years old, old enough to know something was missing from the equation but not quite sure what.

I remember in recent (5 - 10 years or more) thinking, who will sit shiva - mourn - for this man when his time has come? Would I be able to overcome my indifference and attend his funeral? Would I have anything at all to say? Or would I want to ask him all the questions I cannot even form before it is his time to go? I don't even know the situation. I am still non-chalantly waiting for any family updates. Still indifferent as always, yet upset at myself for not feeling more. Wondering if I should feel more, or if I am entitled to feel indifferent because even that is acknowledging some emotion or lack thereof.

Lately I find myself experiencing so many things at the same time. Like longing for New York like an old lover. I harvest that secret excitement within me, letting the butterflies flutter but telling no one. I can't wait to see skyscrapers like a tourist, sit in Bryant Park and watch men take off their Brooks Brothers, trying to get a tan on their hour lunchbreaks.

And with that longing for New York comes the nostalgia of what once was with the excitement of what will be. There are secrets of the future hidden in the rush of the wind. I want to listen to the messages that dwell in my dreams; live my life by what they seem to mean.