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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 5, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I don't think I cried at all when my mother died, due to a combination of:

  1. She had been ill with a terminal neurodegenerative disease for a few years at that point, so we all saw it coming.
  2. I had moved across the country over a decade earlier, and since then had only seen her for a week or two so every year, so we'd grown apart.
  3. Honestly, I just didn't enjoy being around her much in the years leading up to her diagnosis. She wasn't mean or anything, but she was much more negative and complained a lot more than she had before. In retrospect, I think it's likely that this was a preclinical effect of the neurodegeneration.

I was sad, but in a sort of abstract, detached way, and not in a way that was deeply painful.