A cannoli without cream and other trite analogies

Yesterday my grandmother turned 84. That's old. To celebrate her, ahem, longevity, my mother and I took her out to eat last week at a quiet Italian restaurant not far from where I work. I love my grandmother because, well, I'm human. She spoiled me when I was young and was a big part of making me into the man I am today. But I can't spend time with her without somehow feeling 15 years older and 10 pounds heavier. On the outside, she doesn't look or act much older than she did a few years ago, but inside her body surely aches. She still dyes her hair and can walk without assistance, but she's on had three knee operations and her rotator cuff is so worn that she can't lift her right arm without wincing. [I'd wager she can still throw a better heater than this guy.] Trying to cut into her eggplant parmesan, she says,

"I don't know if I can live with this pain. It's a good thing I don't have much longer to go."

*Womp Womp!*

I hear this each Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, graduation party, occasional lunch date, phone call I make to say hi, and so on and so forth. While her awareness of human mortality is admirable, it's also a major drag. I don't want to think about life without my grandmother. Losing my grandfather when I was in middle school was one of the saddest moments of my life. I can bear the weight of losing my grandmother, but I'd rather not worry about that right now. Worst of all, the inevitably of her death brings me to think about the inevitably of all death, which in turn [inevitably] makes me brood about all sorts of fundamental philosophical questions and paradigms. It's not that I don't enjoy chafing over Dualism in some dark corner of my room, but I'd rather not feel depressed for days at a time.

Belief in a traditional religious afterlife eludes me. I believe that's normal. Raised Catholic, I lost faith in its customs and traditions somewhere around along the line. In my teens, I read the Baghavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, and grew enamored of Eastern works and philosophies. In college, I lost my grip on spirituality of all kinds for a while, only to revert to a healthier doubt of it in place of total denial. I'm still don't know what I really believe in, but I'm happiest feeling in balance with nature. Until I understand my faith, I'll continue to live with morals that a god would not frown upon, if one existed. I'll miss my grandmother when she passes, but for now she's alive, and I'll focus on that instead the profound emptiness I'll be left with much too soon. Can't we all be Shinto?