[Mars]

Another grandmother of mine who I barely knew just died . . . and I don't feel much of anything. I feel very like Meursault, or perhaps Holden, and it bugs me.

Do any of you think that genetic relation transcends actually knowing someone, or does it seem to you your care for someone is much more to do with how close you were with them in communication terms?

[PsychoLandlord]

I'm firmly in the camp of the latter idea. I've had fairly close (genetically) family members pass away and not had it affect me in the slightest, generally due to the fact that had spent a grand total of five minutes in their presence. Certainly a tragedy for the family, but not to me, personally. Meanwhile, a long distant cousin I had spent some time with in my younger years died last year and I was devastated. I believe that caring for someone on that level requires communication beforehand. You may pay greater attention to the well being of family members than you do some random stranger, but ultimately you wont care for them unless you know them well enough to develop said feeling.

[Flipside]

If there is no real presence then there is little absence to miss.

We do not judge our losses, I think, by the blood relationship to a person, after all, if you go back far enough everyone on the board is related. When my Uncle died of Motor Neuron Disease at about 55 a few years ago, it didn't really sting, I never really got to know him that well, but when my Grandfather died year before that, it utterly devastated me because we not only looked alike, we thought alike as well and were very close.

[Pred the Penguin]

Same here for the most part.
I did feel bummed out as a kid when my grandmother died. To make a long story short, she was one of the last links to my father who died before I was born.
On the other side of the family, my grandfather died and mostly only made me sad because my mom cried.

[IronBeer]

I'm sorry for your loss. May she rest peacefully.

Now, on to the latter matter: Mars, if you never really knew your grandmother all that well, rationally, why would you be seriously upset? Yes, the absence is final, but if she was never a large part of your life, then there is little to no way for her absence to be felt. It sounds cold, but it's the conclusion you have reached, and it is the same conclusion I reached on a very similar matter.
My grandmother passed away late last year at 92. She had been suffering from dementia for at least the last decade of her life, and ceased recognizing me about 3 years ago. Even my mom, whom my grandmother had known for 30-ish years, was eventually reduced to "that girl from Darien (a Chicago suburb)". It may seem rather strange, but nobody in the family was really bent out of shape, not even my dad (grandma was his last living parent). In a way, she had been gone for quite some time, and her passing was more of a conclusion than an event in of itself.
There's no need to feel guilty about not being upset, based on the info you've provided. ...And I should hope you don't feel like Mersault, that fellow straight-up killed a man "because the sun was in his eyes" and felt nothing; not quite equivalent, if you were to ask me.

[Bobboau]

blood relation gives causal reasons for emotional closeness, but it does not necessarily ensure emotional closeness, it simply provides major opportunity for it to happen under typical circumstances. if you do not form a close relation to someone in-spite of a close blood relation then it is not surprising that you would not have a strong reaction to there death. it's not uncommon for people with even a close relation to have a delayed response simply due to the reality of the situation not sinking in, or other circumstances in there life preventing it from really sinking in.

[Nohiki]

I view death as something that HAS to come, so i don't feel sad when it meets someone, i feel angry if it is too soon. I've lost one of my grandmas, my favourite person in the whole world, due to complete metabolic failure two years ago (basically half of her organs just shut down) and she was only 60. She was smoking for some 5 years in the past and also had some problem with alcohol in the last years of her life, but still it came to her TOO soon. so for me, it's anger, and i would feel the same about my relatives AND my friends. I do not make much difference there.