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Losing Your Last Parent

Fee Writes

When both parents are gone, a deep change unfolds, and the inescapable reality of life’s fragility becomes clear.

I have a friend whose father is very old — over 100 — and he has now been given only a few days to live. My friend, understandably, is very distraught, and it brought back strong memories of when my own father passed away. My mother had died around 20 years earlier, but when my father died, the effect it had on me was something I hadn’t expected.

It doesn’t really matter, I don’t think, how old you are, or how old your parent is — unless, of course, they or you are very young. But I’m speaking more about when they are seniors, nearing the natural end of their lives.

If there’s been a close relationship between you and your parents, there’s a certain vulnerability that arises when the second parent dies. Suddenly, you no longer have that invisible buffer. While you still have living parents, you feel a little invincible; death doesn’t weigh heavily on your mind — unless you’re ill, of course. Under normal circumstances, it’s as if there’s an unseen shield between you and the afterlife.

When both parents have gone, you abruptly become part of the dying generation. That buffer is gone. There is nothing left between you and whatever lies beyond. It’s quite mind-bending. Intellectually, of course, we all know we’ll die one day, but while that buffer exists, our minds tend to block out the reality of it. When it’s gone, the inevitability of death truly hits home.

Religion, logic — none of that comes into it. It’s simply a sensation, a profound feeling that arises. I can’t speak for those who lose their parents young, but certainly, for those of us who are older when our parents pass, it seems to be a common experience. Everyone I’ve spoken to has said the same thing: it suddenly becomes very real. Death isn’t an abstract idea anymore — it’s an unavoidable certainty.

As the saying goes, the only things set in stone are death and taxes — and taxes, if you’re clever enough, you might manage to sidestep. But death? Death is certain. It’s simply part of life, and there it is.