The Unsupportive Family

I am not sure when people lost all compassion, but I am finding family that are completely rude.  My Uncle H= recently passed away.  He was my dad's sister's husband, also the dad of my favorite cousin L.  L is 5 years older than me, but because our parents were close, we spent lots of our childhood together.  Lots of Xmases, Thanksgivings and  random sleep overs.  I used to think that her parents were really cool -- they had a pool table in their basement and she has a Garfield phone.  Well it was the 80s...  Anyway, Uncle H had cancer and had been battling it for almost 4 years -- the last few months had been really tough.  My sister, V, went to live with my cousin to help her to take care of her dad.  Because of this, there were some family strife, with my Uncle P, who is my dad's younger brother, who was letting my sister (19) live with him.  He needed his dog taken care of and my cousin needed someone to care for her dad.  When I asked Uncle P's wife, why couldn't they understand what L was going through, I was told flatly, well (a) he doesn't seem that sick to me and (b) he's not my dad anyway.  I guess a man who can't walk or feed himself is totally normal.  Wow, gotta love family.

About 3 weeks ago, Uncle H passed away and yesterday was the memorial service.  I had been pretty sad about the whole thing and somehow it came up with A's dad.  He said well was he your dad's brother, and I said that he was my dad's sister's husband.  His reaction -- why are you sad, he wasn't even your real Uncle.  A's mom asked me yesterday what Antoine was doing and I said going to my Uncle's funeral and she said, 'Oh, I didn't know that your Uncle died already'.  That was it.  Do people not get sad about death anymore.  I recently read a story about a little girl that died by suffocation because her family would put her in a "box" when she was bad, and I just was so sad about it.  I didn't even know the girl, but I had a tough time getting over it.  Maybe, I am just strange.  The first 10 times I saw the movie, 'Up', I cried each time the Ellie dies.  It's just too sad.

So maybe our society is just too bombarded by death, that there is no sense of sadness because of it.  That's a real shame.