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I've only dealt with the deaths of those who weren't especially important in my life. My maternal great grandmother died at 88 after a lengthy war with Alzheimer's, but I had only interacted with her on a few occasions, many years before. I was 9 or 10 at the time or her death, attending an open-casket service prior to the funeral. Whatever emotions I may have felt were so muted as to be unretrievable now, and my primary recollection is that of intense curiosity at finally gazing upon a corpse and touching its cold hand. No coping was necessary, but I believe the experience emotionally reinforced me towards death.
Less than two years ago, my paternal grandmother's life support was severed after a week of enduring a vegetative state following dozens of strokes that destroyed her capacity for consciousness and higher thought processes. The strokes resulted from the required surgery for repairing a massive aortic rupture. I never attended the funeral or its associated service, and though I experienced slight sadness at her passing, we weren't close enough for me to have felt a significant sense of loss. Most of my fond memories were from childhood and early adolescence, and altogether, I saw her less than 40 or so times in my life, due to the distance between her home and mine, Tennessee and Florida.
Until someone that holds significant subjective value dies, I won't know if I am completely calloused towards the loss of human life or simply haven't lost the right individual yet. As can be expected, I am in no rush to determine which of the two is accurate.
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