I’ve been thinking lately about loss. Not the deep, jagged grief occasioned by the loss of a close family member or friend, but the smaller losses, more peripheral but no less meaningful.
Last month I heard about the death of a family friend, a gentle man I’ve always called Uncle Harold – not a blood relative, but someone I have known and loved all my life. He was my grandfather’s close friend for many years; his wife and my grandmother talked every day until Mimi’s death, two years ago. Harold’s son and daughter grew up with my dad and uncles, and his grandson is my lifelong friend. I know my loss is small compared to that of Harold’s wife, Carmen, and their family. But his death marked another small shift in the foundations of my world, and I realized it’s happening with increasing frequency.
Last summer, when Lindsey wrote about being thirty-eight, she said, “Thirty-eight is not having any more grandparents.” At thirty, I still have two grandparents – my mom’s parents, who live in the Texas Hill Country near San Antonio. But my dad’s folks are both gone: my grandfather back in 2000, my grandmother in 2012. With Uncle Harold’s death, Aunt Carmen is the only one left of that quartet of friends, who used to spend long evenings playing card games or chatting over dinner. I don’t find myself in southwest Missouri very often any more, and I am glad Harold is no longer suffering (he struggled with Parkinson’s for years). But it makes me sad to know he isn’t there, and that Carmen is all alone.
I am starting to lose the pillars of my childhood, those relatives and family friends who were always there, who could be counted on for Christmas and birthday cards and occasional phone calls. They didn’t always share my DNA or live close by, but they made up the foundation of my early years. I have, so far, been fortunate: my parents and sister, along with my husband and his parents, are still here and healthy, and I know (without wanting to seem morbid) that there are greater losses in all our futures. But every time I hear that someone I loved has died, the foundation shifts a little, and I realize again that this is part of what it means to grow up.
Another family friend, Susan, has recently been moved to hospice care, still hovering on the periphery of life for now. She moved away after her divorce and I haven’t seen her for many years, but I remember her clearly from when I was a little girl, her dark hair and almond-shaped eyes and gentle smile. I remember when each of her three daughters joined their family: her oldest, Lauren, was born just before my sister Betsy turned four, and I remember Susan cradling her, wrapped in a yellow blanket, at Betsy’s birthday party. I used to baby-sit Lauren and her sisters in the summers, watching Disney Channel shows and making lunches and letting them brush my hair. They are now in their twenties, all long limbs and shiny blonde hair in their Facebook photos – confident, grown-up young women.
I know Susan’s family, when they lose her, will grieve far more deeply than I will. I know this is the natural cycle of things: birth and death, over and over, world without end, amen. But I will mourn her too, as I mourned Harold: not just because their deaths will leave a hole in the fabric of their families, but because the tectonic plates of my own life will shift a bit. Because even if I haven’t seen them for years, the world is a little dimmer and sadder without the people I love.
cakes, tea and dreams 
A lovely reflection on loss. I’m at a point in my life when I am attending more funerals than weddings, which is really difficult. Despite it inevitability, death is still life-altering each and every time for those of us left behind.
This hit so close to home, as I am dealing with my own sense of loss and losing my footing because of the empty space left where family friends or more distant relatives used to be – some from death, some from changes as a result of my parents’ divorce in my adulthood. Thank you for putting it into words.
I’m sorry for your loss, Katie. Losing those pillars is incredibly rough. Both of my grandfathers are still living but I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to say that, not because they’re currently ill but because they are getting older. There’s still a part of me that prefers to think all of my loved ones are back home hanging out, instead of remembering the gaps in our gatherings. When my aunt died two years ago, I kept thinking about how I was the next generation and how it will fall on me, my brother, and my cousins to keep our traditions going. I’m not ready for any of that.
This hits home for me too as I lost my beloved grandmother this year. As we get older, these losses (ours and our friends’) seem to take up more and more space in our lives. It’s devastating yet unavoidable. I try to appreciate every day, but find it really hard to keep that grounded perspective all the time.
This is one of things I felt unprepared for once I hit my mid-thirties (I am 41 now). Lately it seems the losses are stacking up. More and more friends losing loved ones, most grandparents gone. I swallow hard when I think about the loss of my parents, and most days I block it out and think it’s so far into the future.
A few years ago while I was still working as a copywriter, I was preparing a ad pitch for a brand that incorporated content from an author named Kelly Corrigan. I hadn’t heard of her, but my boss had already read her book, The Middle Place, and told me to watch a short youtube video that she had done to get a feel for who she was. She warned me not to watch when anyone else was around. I scoffed. I wish I had listened. There were many witnesses to tears that day. 😉
Here it is:
I usually don’t succumb to things like this, but it hit me hard.