Timor Mortis Conturbat, well, not me so much as Andrew

[moon_custafer]

The girlfriend of the owner of Andrew’s favourite comic-book store died suddenly on the weekend – I don’t know the details yet. It briefly frightened Andrew into imagining something happening to me, and then into feeling guilty over “being selfish.” I myself don’t like to think what would happen to him on his own, but I close off that avenue with something like Jane Eyre’s response of “I must keep in good health, and not die.” I can usually reassure us both with my family medical history, which is full of octo- and nonagenarians.

Comments

[donald hutton (from livejournal.com)]

Speaking as someone who's had quite a bit of death in the family recently, I can assure you that Andrew's guilt reaction happens to everyone. You feel awful about your loss and then guilty because, after all, the dead person has it worse than you: they're dead!

Apart from life insurance there's nothing to be done about random future deaths so no point in worrying about it.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

No, he feels guilty for worrying about a potential loss instead of feeling bad for someone else's.

(I don’t usually worry too much on behalf of the dead, since we’ve all got to go eventually. And this lady seems to have died in her sleep, like Possum did, which was probably painless for her – but awful for everyone else who had no time to brace themselves for the loss.)