When a person’s last living parent dies, there is not only a profound sense of loss and finality, but also another aspect of the grief that may not be so readily apparent: the end of being someone’s child. After waiting in the family line for a lifetime, the grieving son or daughter now moves to the front of the line. And it is as this point that he or she realizes that the next train into the station will be coming for them.
I think the grief of losing a parent is not just the pain of losing a mother or father, but it is also grief at the loss of one’s own youth to the throes of advancing age. The mist of our lives is evaporating, and nothing like the loss of a parent can make it any more apparent. Mortality is on full display when our last living parent departs because each of us knows our own death must also be lurking out there in the murky waters somewhere.
I am not yet fifty, yet I have been standing at the head of my family line now for several years. It is a burden that has something of a “patriarchal” feel to it, as if I am the one that people are looking to even though I feel as if one of my feet is always on a banana peel. I have never felt as sure of myself as I felt in adolescence. Now firmly planted in middle age, I feel a certain precariousness that makes getting my through each day seem as if I’ve gotten away with something. I feel unqualified for this phase of my life, but if you live long enough, you will eventually reach the head of the line. So here I stand, waiting . . . hoping someone will cut in front of me.
I think the grief of losing a parent is not just the pain of losing a mother or father, but it is also grief at the loss of one’s own youth to the throes of advancing age. The mist of our lives is evaporating, and nothing like the loss of a parent can make it any more apparent. Mortality is on full display when our last living parent departs because each of us knows our own death must also be lurking out there in the murky waters somewhere.
I am not yet fifty, yet I have been standing at the head of my family line now for several years. It is a burden that has something of a “patriarchal” feel to it, as if I am the one that people are looking to even though I feel as if one of my feet is always on a banana peel. I have never felt as sure of myself as I felt in adolescence. Now firmly planted in middle age, I feel a certain precariousness that makes getting my through each day seem as if I’ve gotten away with something. I feel unqualified for this phase of my life, but if you live long enough, you will eventually reach the head of the line. So here I stand, waiting . . . hoping someone will cut in front of me.