That was quite the read... Thank you for sharing, and my condolences...
My uncle has cancer... And his hopes seem slim. Both my grandmothers and an aunt died from cancer. Such a bitch disease.
My father died a few years ago very suddenly, not from cancer (basically suffocated because of a blood clot) and I hadn't seen him in a long time.
You ask about different ways of having handled deaths and I think something might be wrong with me in that, not even with my father's death did I feel that terrible. We weren't that close but we weren't not close either... And the most that happened was a sort of surrealness the next morning, thinking that he no longer existed...
No tears... Not even a lump in my throat.
I can understand this. I think you are normal. I think most grief is felt from the guilt of things unsaid and to be honest that guilt can be felt instantly or many years down the road. I know that a lot of pain can be felt down the road when you go to pick up the phone and call someone who has passed many years ago. There is so much life to deal with that death sometimes has to take a backseat.