I think compassion is just an inner feeling (my T and I got in an argument about whether she was compassionate or not :-) and doesn't have an agreed-upon set of actions (unlike, say "sadness," where the action might be to cry and "look" sad).

I think as the child in your story, you would have been hard pressed to "care" about your grandfather, does not sound like you knew him at all? I don't think your experience in life allowed you to learn to care if your mother was sad or not; you got punished for such random things (I did too sometimes), it's hard to know what "feeling" goes with what; someone else can't make us feel something.

I remember when I was in college and had trouble finding the "right" Christmas present for my stepmother; I thought I had but then when I went to buy it after I got the money, it turned out not to be what I thought it was and I was left present-less and with too little time before Christmas to come up with another idea. I did not have a present to give on Christmas Day and my stepmother was devastated and really angry. I was old enough to know that the reaction was way over the top for not being given a present but that did not stop the feelings of humiliation, unhappiness, and helplessness that I could not make it right.

Your mother controlled the situations when you were a child. You did not learn some feelings because you did not get the opportunity to, did not have the circumstances! You cannot be sad for someone you do not know or for someone else's sadness when they punish you for not reacting like they want! Your mother was, I think, feeling sorry for herself that her father had died, not sorry for her father dying. I have lost both my parents and looked hard at what I was experiencing as I experienced it. That you did not feel sorry for your mother's loss is similar, I think to my stepmother having to have/expecting a gift; it is our mothers' problem and feeling, not ours that is off.

I think you will be able to learn compassion from your T. You first need compassion for yourself, that you are learning these things now, when it is harder, rather than back when you were growing up. I am sad that when you were growing up you did not have a better role model to help you learn to identify and express your feelings appropriately. Have some compassion for poor granite having to learn them now!