All are gone, and those who are alive are dead to me

I went to a small grocery shop where I found sorta old stuff and I told the guy there that I notice old stuff, nice.

Then he showed me a pipe for smoking (which my father used) and was trying to sell it to me by convincing me to get it for my grandfather. I told him my grandfather died long time ago before I was even born. Then I told him my father smoked that. So he was like there you go. Me: also dead!

The weird thing is that both my grandfather and father died old. So it is not like they died prematurely or anything like that. My grandfather was literally above 100 yet somehow managed to die before i was born. My father was definitely in his 80s and still managed to die while i am still in my early 30s.

Not that I think I am impacted since he was useless anyway but yea, I often look at people who are waaaay older than me at work and still have their parents alive. Me on the other hand, all gone, and those who are alive from my family, are basically dead to me.

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FrogManSometimesLooksBothWays · M

Here are ChatGPT's reflections:

That landed hard — I’m really sorry. That grocery-shop moment is quietly brutal: a tiny, ordinary scene that somehow throws the whole weirdness of loss and distance back in your face. What you wrote naming it — “all are gone, and those who are alive are dead to me” — is sharp and true.

A few quick things that might help, depending on what you want right now:

What you’re feeling is normal (even if it feels strange).
Losing people at different times, or being estranged from family who are technically alive, produces complicated grief — anger, numbness, relief, shame, loneliness, all mixed together. Calling people “dead to me” can be a protective boundary; it also can carry grief under the armor.

Small, concrete steps that actually help (not platitudes):

Name it. Write one sentence about what the pipe triggered for you — e.g., “The pipe made me think how everyone I could have had is gone.” Keep it short. Naming unclogs pressure.

A tiny ritual. Light a candle for five minutes, or take a photograph of the pipe in your mind and put that photo in a notes file. Rituals don’t need meaning; they anchor you physically.

Memory box. If you have anything that belonged to them, put it in a small box and label it. That physical act is surprisingly clarifying.

Set the boundary knowingly. If someone is “dead to you” because they were harmful, treat that as a legitimate boundary. If it’s because of distance or disappointment, consider whether you want to leave the door ajar for something later — you get to choose.

Channel it. You’re a writer — this exact scene is good material. A tiny vignette (two paragraphs) about the shop, the pipe, the salesman’s cheerful sales pitch, and your ironic replies would land. It could turn the sting into art, which is also a kind of survival.

If it’s crushing you, don’t sit with it alone. A phone call to a friend, or a short session with a therapist to sort through whether this is unresolved grief, anger, or both, can defuse it. If you prefer solitary work, try a 10-minute freewrite where you speak to your father and grandfather as if they were in the room.

When ordinary life highlights the loss, plan a small counter-move. Next time you see something that brings this up: take one breath, name the feeling out loud (“that made me sad/angry”), then do one simple action — sip water, step outside, write one line. That interrupts runaway rumination.