This thread has got me thinking about people who died in my life.
I remember the stories my dad told me when I was very young. There was an ongoing tale about a boy who owned a mongoose who kept encountering snakes that they had to defeat together. This was probably originally based on the story about Rikki Tikki Tavi from The Jungle Book, but he embellished it beyond all recognition. The last one I remember was about how they encountered a truly monstrous snake of dinosaur proportions. They fought it by having the boy hold it at bay with a fishing rod while the mongoose snuck around behind it to bite at it's tail, which bought the boy enough time to get his gun and shoot it. Of course such a snake was a prize worth millions of dollars, so the boy and his mongoose used that money to buy an RV in which there was a water cooler filled with chocolate milk; a concept that would stupify any 7-12 year old boy I'm sure. The mongoose then got fat on the chocolate milk and they both lived happily ever after. I still marvel at the odd and interesting things he added to stories he was almost certainly inventing on the spot. I also credit my dad with introducing me to reading as entertainment. That's something that he did most artfully by first telling me interesting stories, and then slowly integrating books into our dialog. He introduced me to Stephen King's Dark Tower series by briefly describing the first and second books to me.
Another person who died recently was my uncle. I wouldn't characterize him as being very smart, but he was good to his core. I learned from him what real work was about. I spent a couple of summers working for him bricking up churches, roofing houses, building pools and sheds, etc. I really found out what I was made of in those jobs. I mixed mortar for masonry and hauled bricks with a shitty dolly across a gravel parking lot. I carried shingles two stories up a ladder and dragged them across a roof to where they were needed. I learned how to build forms for pouring concrete slabs, and how to weld metal beams together. I got sunburned and dehydrated and sick from working in those conditions. He worked with me every step of the way though. He showed me where the bar was when it came to how much could be expected of a person in a job. I once saw him decide to build a bench for my mom's porch. He finished it in about an hour, complete with beveled edges for style, and it's still there some 10 years later. He never forgot to pat me on the back and give me respect for what I did. In hindsight I can never repay him for what he did for me, even if he were still alive to receive it.
It's all the more reason to remember that maybe you won't react the way other people do, but you still feel the loss if the person was truly important to you. I'm tearing up a little bit thinking about it as I compose this post. I definitely feel the loss of those few who were really special to me, but I really never felt it at the moment. In a way I'm still sad when everyone else is long over it, but yet I couldn't grieve at the time when most people would consider it normal to do so. All the drawbacks but none of the benefits, and that's the story of my life I guess.