I keep finding myself re-reading this. I relate a lot. As a classics student I get feeling like a barbarian but I feel better reading how people used to grieve, with screams and wailing. Britain at least doesnt like it when you show loss like that.
I was in a fight with both my parents when they died, which i feel like i should have more guilt over than I do. I have my first therapy appointment in two days which I hope helps.
Thank you for sharing, reading your article and all the comments helps me realize I’m not alone, even though the immediate people around me don’t necessarily understand, there are people out there who do.
I was an orphan, in my eyes, at the age of 18
My dad suddenly passed away of a heart attack/stoke at 16, and my mom within the next year diagnosed randomly with stage four pancreatic cancer. By the age of 18 she had passed away.
Thankfully we always had a tight knit family, my parents divorced, got back together, more complicated than it sounds, oddly... but the love in the family and the link between us all never dissipated. I have two older brothers who I’ve always been incredibly close to as well. Without them I’m not sure where I’d be today. I’ve just now turned 25 and I’m still dealing with it all. I wasn’t able to be there for my mother the way I wanted to be because of the fact I was still working through my fathers death. But your comment on not understand how much you identify with being a daughter/son, it really hit me. I’m still to this day trying to find who I am with out them. They undoubtably made me who I am today.
@KelliAuerbach Thank you for writing with such honesty about your experience. Your insights and expression of your feelings and grief are moving and valuable. I lost both my parents at 26. Today I have lived half my life as an orphan. Looking back, it's still hard to believe. You had me at "I had no tether now". I have always had that feeling but was unable to put it into words that so clearly and distinctly as you did. (Hope it's OK if I borrow that from time to time.) I miss my parents every day. And I still get sad. That sadness used to be for me. I'd wonder how long did the sadness count as sadness and was/is there a point where sadness can become self-pity. But today, the sadness I feel these days is mainly for my wife and sons. They’ll never know mom’s great sense of humor. Or see my father’s passion for his stamp collecting hobby. It saddens me my sons will never bask in being doted on by them the way my nephews were. Never sit with mom on the living room floor watching a marathon of Rowan Atkinson VHS tapes. Or be taught the history of The USS Constitution naval ship my dad donated pennies to help restore it when sailors asked for support at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in the early 1930’s. I know my parents live on through the stories I tell, I just wish they could have told their stories themselves.
This really moved me as I lost both my parents by the time I was 20. It was a very confusing time because I was just getting my independence yet like you described I had no tether. No one was responsible for me. i’m 43 and it is still difficult especially when I hear about people complaining about their parents. I am just lucky to have the ones that I did. I do disagree with one part of your article though – there is no such thing as a half orphan. You either are or you aren’t. not to diminish the experience of only losing one parent however if I had had one parent to help me navigate the past 23 years, I believe everything would be much different. An orphan is completely alone
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@Nicole I agree with that completely. My dad died at 13 my mom at 18. My moms death rocked my world upside down. I’m 23 and still so lost with my identity and grief
@Nicole I enjoyed reading your comment as I also agree with the statement about "half-oprhans."Losing one parent is undoubtedly difficult, but losing both is a whole 'nother realm. I, too, lost both parents but I was a bit older...in my mid 20's. Now, 29, and still feeling lost, this article put a lot of the feelings I've been having into perspective and truly resonated with me. After the loss, I felt so alienated that I started further alienating myself as somewhat of a sport and felt that since my friends were so obviously awkward around me and didn't know what to say, this meant we should no longer continue our friendship. I felt like they weren't "there for me." Now, I struggle with the support side of things due to the fact that I feel no one truly understands (at least not anyone I know) and don't exactly know where to lean. As you previously mentioned, the part about not having a tether is so painfully real. Anyway, I liked what you had to say and I wish you luck in all of your future endeavors;
Thank you for writing this. Technically I'm a half orphan since my bio dad isn't dead but I was raised by a single mom so I feel like a full orphan. My mom died suddenly last year, when my first child was only two months old, and I've been really struggling at times. It's so true that no one gets it unless they've lived it. I've just signed up to host a table for The Dinner Party and I'm hoping to be able to transform my experience into a way of helping others. It's a nonprofit that brings together people in their 20s and 30s who've suffered the loss of a loved one.
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Hi Kelli,
I was so moved by your piece. I am a half orphan and have used similar words (unmoored; untethered) for my experience since losing my mother 5 years ago. I'm so glad you wrote this piece to share your experiences - and that you're sharing your wisdom with children going through similar experiences.
We are a special breed, in a way. Both my parents gone before I was 21 has put me on a path with detours and obstacles I could never have imagined over 25 years later. Milestones in life are often tables for 1; I never attended my college graduation ceremonies, went by myself to get my wedding dress, and still find myself very angry 4 times a year without fail (2 birthdays, 2 death days). If you have this life you know you are different than others and convince yourself that your strange backstory helps paint a picture of resiliance. But you always notice that moment when a new friend or coworker hears your story for the first time and they never look at you the same way again.
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I have felt like a bit of an orphan, even though both of my parents are still here...I truly mean no disrespect, I will explain: Both of my parents are ill - the type of illnesses that slowly drag the life out of you. My father has had MS for 35+ years and is essentially bed bound; my mother has Alzheimer’s and is no longer the person she was just a few years ago - the main caregiver for my Dad and the person who held us all together. I can no longer go to either of them for advice and holidays are basically gone. I have no siblings. I am 41, clearly an adult, with a great husband, 2 little kids and great in-laws. I really know I shouldn’t complain, but it’s still hard. Maybe I should start a group of my own for those of us with chronically ill parents. I am so sorry for the many losses people have experienced on here and I hope my comment doesn’t offend.
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@Jacqueline You area strong person. In many ways you have lost your parents, or at least who they once were. I am sure there are other people with similar experiences. I think you and those similarly affected would benefit if you started a support group. Best wishes, and thank you for sharing. X
@Jacqueline I feel you. My Father is gone and my Mom has ALS. Im 41. Sigh.
It does take one to know one! My father died suddenly when I was 12 years old and after the funeral, I have no memory of anyone (family, school, friends or their parents) every inquiring again as to how I was doing. Even within our home, we siblings didn't talk to each other about our grief or discuss it with our mother. My mother died 7 years ago after a long illness. Recognizing that I was an orphan at 41 made me grieve my father's death all over again which I hadn't anticipated. Who I thought were good friends were surprisingly aloof and clueless, which compounded my sense of feeling freakishly on the outside. I, too have found volunteering w grief groups to be a way to take these experiences into the light and help others not feel so alone in their grief. Thank you for sharing your story.
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Sometimes it really does take one to know one!
The Wounded Healer.
Gallows humor can be so healing.
The power of identity as daughter of a living mother or father, and the pain of Self lost. Know this and prepare for it because there is nothing you can do to stop it. Anticipatory grief.
Transitions, transformation, reframing.
Resilience and post-traumatic growth.
We need others!
"We never know the good we do, still less the chain of consequences to which it gives rise. But this is the only legacy worth leaving: the trace we leave on other lives, and they on others in turn. Sometimes a single act, like the beating of a butterfly’s wing, can reverberate in incalculable ways." [Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks]
My beloved nephew lost his dad (my eldest brother) at age 20; his mom died when he was 29. This story really hit home for me and I'm going to share it with him. Thank you so much for writing it. I've always felt like he feels alone in this "category" of "young orphan." I'm sure he'll be deeply touched by what you shared here.
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Even for those of us who lost their parents later in life, this article is very valuable and needed. The mention of birthdays without a parent really resonated, describing how I felt when my parents died. To which could be added holidays.
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I needed this article, really. After losing my father at 17 and then my mother about ten years later to breast cancer, I’ve felt the difference in support levels from the two losses. When my father passed, I had all sorts of community make real efforts to help out even though all I really needed at that time was my mother. Watching her fight cancer until the end obscured the larger picture of loss and when she was gone the entirety of it hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought I was prepared (to the degree I could be) - I’d been through this before right? I was so wrong. And then society and even family surprisingly expressed the attitudes I’m unfortunately seeing in this comment section. “Get back up and go to work, you’re a grown up, no handouts.” When I see family post those endless ‘gimme a break millennials’ clickbait articles it feels like an entire country is telling me “screw you.” And I AM lucky, as a straight white cisgendered male who doesn’t look like an ogre&grew up in a wealthy area with good schools thanks to my dear departed parents, and my career is even in the category of ‘dream jobs’ that even though it doesn’t pay well, carries the cache of class and privilege that often places me with colleagues that secretly have trust funds and ‘help’ with rent and mortgages. Sometimes it all feels like a cruel joke. I’ve preserved through adversity along the lines of the Great American Dream and largely won - and yet, there’s no exemption from student loans for orphans
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Kelli, you have a tremendous heart to share your story and to also be there for the children in the bereavement group. I lost my parents, just 2 years apart, in my early 20's. It was a huge shock to my extended family as my parents were each the first of their brothers and sisters to pass away. Both suffered from debilitating illnesses. I wasn't yet married, but engaged, and through the love and support of a wonderful husband-to-be, aunts, cousins and friends, I somehow managed to build a full life. There wasn't much available in the way of support or therapy groups at that time so I am thankful for those that stepped up to help. I guess I never considered myself an 'orphan', but rather someone who was proceeding through life, without parents, doing the best they could.
When my children came along, it broke my heart that they would never know their grandparents, nor would my parents know them.
I was envious, and continue to be, of friends who still have their parents, even with the challenges of caring for an aging elder. There is a void that remains to this day, after almost 40 years, that I have become an adult myself, with now adult children, without the benefit of sharing milestones with my parents.
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Kelli, thank you so much for this thoughtful article. My father died when I was 3, too early for me to even know what was going on or remember him, now that I'm an adult. My mother died when I was 30, and my first thought was that I was now an orphan. Yes, I was fully grown, was married, had a job, was in graduate school, but I felt I was set adrift and lost my anchor. I was really angry that she was gone before I had kids, and that my kids will never know her.
My best friend's dad died 7 years later, and we spent a lot of time on the phone together, as she didn't know anyone else who had lost a parent and could understand what she was experiencing.
Something else that happened when I lost my mom was that we had lost the center of the family -- my aunt had died a few months earlier, and they had kept a large extended family spread across the country in close contact. Social media has made this much easier, but this was before we had any of that. So my cousin and I stepped up to take over their roles. It was hard enough losing these two women so close together, we needed to keep the rest of the family going.
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My mother died of brain cancer when I was 15. My father had a heart attack 5 years later. I’m now 55. I’ve outlived my mother. This experience made me who I am. My life would have been very different. I did learn that there’s not much I can’t handle. The only thing I fear is something happening to my child.
I’m now at the age when it’s normal to have dead parents. My father’s sister, who I was very close with, just died at 93. I was able to be with her. It was such different experience because it was sad but not tragic. For a long time, I had a hard time empathizing when a peer lost an elderly parent. I get it more now, but it’s still not the same.
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It's been over 40 years since I lost both of my parents in my 20s. Back then, I felt the expectation was that this shouldn't affect my life very much since I was an adult so I bucked up and carried on. When I had my own children, I thought that nothing could hurt me except the death of one of them. Ironically, my daughter cut me out of her life when she was the age I was when my mother died. My parents didn't choose to leave me, but she did.
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I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK:
The Orphaned Adult: Understanding And Coping With Grief And Change After The Death Of Our Parents by Alexander Levy.
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I cannot thank you enough for this article. I, too, lost both parents in my 20s.
I remember murmuring the word "orphan" as my father was being buried, only to be told "no, you're an adult whose parents have died." That brief comment stung and made me feel as though I could not use the term because of my age, even though it described how I felt.
It was as though my age meant that I knew how to deal with what had happened, when I was so lost and had no idea how to move forward. The world seemed a scarier place.
Now, I always feel a twinge of pain when people talk about families and milestones in the present and future tenses, where as I can only refer to past tenses. The pre and post holiday discussions and chats are the worst; I've come to perfect my "smile and nod" routine well.
Because of that remark, I still don't use the word "orphan" when describing myself. And I still feel stranded when people begin to talk about their families in conversation. I don't think that feeling will ever go away.
Your article really described how I felt and still feel at times. Thank you for making me feel that my emotions are valid.
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This one hit home. Mom, the anchor of our family, died of cancer when I was 18. Dad never regained his bearings and took his own life when I was 23. I was adrift in grad school, a highly stressful sink-or-swim environment, full of insecurities about personal life and career, in a culture that frowned on “grown” men showing weakness or emotion.
I got lucky. My future wife made the first move – I probably wouldn’t have had the guts. We have great kids and grandkids. I pulled it together, finished grad school, and went on to a reasonably successful career. We have security for retirement and so much else to be thankful for. Through it all, I have always had vague feelings of being unmoored, an impostor, not really a grown-up. I think it goes back to those orphan days that the writer evokes so well.
When my kids were 22 and 20, I was diagnosed with acute leukemia. My daughter cried when I told her on the phone. That was the worst – the thought of putting my own kids through such a wrenching loss. Fortunately, the disease was curable – that was 15 years ago. The kids seem very well-grounded and self-confident in their 30s. That feels good (my wife deserves most of the credit).
Thanks for writing this article and motivating me to put these thoughts down on paper.
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Kelli- I'm so glad to have found your article, THANK YOU. I too have lost my parents (who were my closest friends) as a young adult (early 30's). Both to terminal cancers (metastatic bladder and glioblastoma), nine months apart. In between, my grandma passed too. I raced against the clock to get pregnant, hoping my parents could meet my first-born child. I did not succeed. My Dad passed before I became pregnant, and my Mom passed before I gave birth. My pregnancy was spent mourning my Dad and caregiving for and watching my Mom die. I joked I should have taken monthly bump photos in front of Memorial Sloan Kettering.
It's disheartening to see some commenters shame you. But are we surprised they don't get it? Nope, not really! And that's exactly the point. They must not realize that you know you could have had it worse, and that you're grateful that you didn't. I get you my friend, I am a version of you. I know your deep pain, it is my pain.
Thank you for giving back in the most beautiful of ways. I think I've earned the privilege of telling you that your parents would be proud.
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Kelli- I'm so glad to have found your article, THANK YOU. I too have lost my parents (who were my closest friends) as a young adult (early 30's). Both to terminal cancers (metastatic bladder and glioblastoma), nine months apart. In between, my grandma passed too. I raced against the clock to get pregnant, hoping my parents could meet my first-born child. I did not succeed. My Dad passed before I became pregnant, and my Mom passed before I gave birth. My pregnancy was spent mourning my Dad and caregiving for and watching my Mom die. I joked I should have taken monthly bump photos in front of Memorial Sloan Kettering.
It's disheartening to see some commenters shame you. But are we surprised they don't get it? Nope, not really! And that's exactly the point. They must not realize that you know you could have had it worse, and that you're grateful that you didn't. I get you my friend, I am a version of you. I know your deep pain, it is my pain.
Thank you for giving back in the most beautiful of ways. I think I've earned the privilege of telling you that your parents would be proud.
This is a very important article because it is something that as far as I am concerned is not discussed.
On March 4th this year it marked 31 years when my parents both died in a private plane crash. They flew into bad weather and there was no way they would survive. It occurred 15 days before my 23rd birthday, and at that point, my brother was 19.
2 weeks later our maternal grandmother died, 9 months later our paternal grandmother died and a week later my dog was put down. That was 1988. I am still not sure why & how I am still here.
I starting calling myself an instant orphan. There is nothing like sitting in front of 2 coffins at once. Especially when you know it is your parents inside. We each only get one set of parents and mine were now gone. My life was totally turned upside down. Everything I thought I knew to be true I now knew was far to be true.
I miss them every single day, I was lucky to have someone find ACCESS which stands for AirCraft Casualty Emotional Support Services. Through this organization, I met my mentor, Elizabeth, she lost her parents & brother in the same type of accident, it happened in the same month, same weather conditions, we were the same age, all of a sudden I no longer felt like a Yeti. I am incredibly grateful for her.
They say it is not easy for an adult to bury a child, well it is not easy for a child to bury a or both parents either. Life is never ever the same for either.
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@BarbaraZ thank you for your comment. Both of my parents were killed in an accident and buried at the same time. Staring at two coffins is something that will stick with me forever. I don’t know how I got through those days.
@BarbaraZ --Your comment was beautiful & I realized that my Mother died on March 4th, as well. then came my Father a year later. I just thought it interesting that it was 03/04 for both of us. I wish you luck on your future endeavors, Barbara, and thank you for your comment.
That's really something: the similarity with having a mood disorder/disability, and being in a room full of others who do too. "A little posse of freaks," indeed. (smile)
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Hi Kelli from New York City! I'm reading this at work, having dropped my 2 daughters off at preschool. Glad you're helping those little kids. Your parents would be proud of you.
p.s. I'm happy to be your mom!
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"In becoming an orphan in my 20s I was a barbarian — an alien with an alien tongue, able to shut up a room with my story. No one knew what to say. I barely knew what to say."
Oh my heavens yes. One of the hardest moments after my father's sudden death when I was in graduate school (coming a few years after my mother died my junior year of college) was returning to campus after the funeral and bumping into a couple of friends. They'd sort of heard on the grapevine and from FB what happened but weren't sure exactly. So I told them. And the looks on their faces, this combination of horror and shock and dread, told me they had absolutely no idea how to process this information, much less what to do with me or how to respond. I don't blame them-- they were a couple of years younger than my mid-20s self, and likely could absolutely not fathom such a set of experiences, but I've never felt so alone. I might as well have been speaking "sheep."
I'm in my late 30s now and still the only person of my generation that I know who's an orphan, and I think after a decade plus of speaking "sheep," I've mostly gotten used to it. I guess it's what it's like to emigrate from your home country and take on the language of the new country such that you gradually forget your original one.
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You need a new category: After having lost my father in my early 20s, I lost my mother, my sister and my brother within a two year span; my two siblings within a 3 month span. You nailed the shameful "freakishness" of this. I chose to hide since it brings everyone down and just makes me feel worse to talk about it. That said, thank you for writing this. I always knew I wasn't alone but it was to cathartic to hear someone say out loud what I've been thinking in private for the last 20 years.
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Impeccably written. I am sorry for your losses and grateful for your words.
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Both my parents died by the time I was 39. No one cares at that age either. Work cut me no slack when trying to care for them, it was all huffing and puffing on how inconvenient of it it was. I don't have many relatives, and it was me and my 30 year old sister scrambling to do everything with no guidance.
All the holidays and birthdays are a big kick in the head. Parents are the center of them. You get asked uncomfortable questions, about, "What are you getting your mom?"
There were no support groups 25 years ago for younger adults who parents just died. Lots of groups for spouses. Lots groups for family who lostn a loved one to cancer. Nothing for kids who's parents died because of old age related illness.
People are too self centered to care until everyone their circle has similar stuff happen to them. My friends 60 and up are dealing with sick/dying parents now. I try to be helpful, but the memories of being ignored and brushed off are hard to overcome.
Good luck! It's a club no one wants to be in.
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My husband’s family had the exact same experience only he lost his parents 11 weeks apart. And you are exactly right when you speak of it being the oddest time of life because you are not yet an adult yet no one is going to step in and “parent you” because you are no longer a child. My best advice is to seek out those people in your life. No one person can ever be your Mom or Dad but a collection of loving friends, partners and mentors will help fill the void. My mother “mothered” my husband. And get help. My sister-in-law never recovered from her losses and her anxiety and depression were never properly treated despite decades of being encouraged to try different therapies.
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How timely this piece presents itself (my father's yahrzeit is the published date). My siblings and I lost our mother at the age of 17 just a few months shy of my high school graduation. At the age of 21, my father succumbed to cancer just a mere days after my college graduation. I found myself abandoned, both times, at pivotal moments in my life when I needed parental guidance the most. Life can be extremely cruel and unfair. However, now, almost 10 years orphaned, I reconcile my tragedy with my resilience. And, this is a testament to my parent's legacy. They raised us to be proud, thoughtful, and enduring.
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Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece. I lost my father this past October, 8 months after losing my mother. I'm older than the author (in my lower 30s) but I am still the only one of my friends that has lost both parents. It hurts tremendously to think about the milestones that my parents did not live to see, that my parents won't walk me down the aisle or get to meet my children. But as other commenters have recommended, it helps to continue to talk to my parents. And it is a comfort to know that the depth of pain is a reflection of how much love there was between us.
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Perhaps she had aunts and uncles? siblings? my sister died and her children are in the 30s and I took over and told them that I was here for them, I was my sister but I loved them. To me the group she joined was tortuous. My feeling is that she thought too much about it, it become who she was.
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@KT B This didn't happen to you, so why call her group "torturous" or dismiss her experience, which you and I can't possibly share? We are lucky.
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Since when are adults considered, or worse self-considered, as orphans? Merrian-Webster dictionary correctly defines orphan as: "a child deprived by death of one or usually both parents." This article's title is just another demonstration of the continued "juvenile-ness" of the younger generations in this country; they cannot let go of comic books, or movies made of comic book characters, cannot define real-life occurrences except in comparison to movies, and other examples of at least one generation that cannot move into adulthood. An adult is NOT an orphan...an adult is supposedly capable of supporting oneself, emotionally as well as physically/economically.
Today's "adult children" can't even move out of mommy and daddy's home, because they refuse to earn their own way to pay for housing/food, when that money just has to go for games. Every older parent & grandparent I know either is experiencing this or knows of friends who are burdened with the problem.
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@Aaron Taylor Disagree completely with this highly judgmental comment. It's meaning is in the emotional quality of loss described with the title of 'orphan.' I had a therapist make the same orphan comment when my Dad died and I was well into my 30's, not it's 60's. So other than a superficial read of the article to criticize the superficial read deeper for the discomfort of loss.
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@Aaron Taylor M-W does indeed say a child, not a minor child, thereby making the term as used here still correct. One can be a fully functional, self-supporting adult and still call themselves an orphan. It is far too broad a brush to tie this expression of grief to an issue (real or perceived) of "juvenile-ness".
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@Aaron Taylor Perhaps you should read the definition of Orphan a little more carefully as it does not say "minor". But then again, perhaps that's the problem with older generations. They seem to think they know everything.
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Thank you for your courage in speaking out. Many people (even relatives) are oblivious to the fact that experiences of deep grief in one's 20's can affect future decades. Holidays can really be difficult for some time. I found it helpful to reach out to elders as mentors, they were often grateful and occasionally could really step up to the plate. I am grateful there are now special programs to help grieving children. Life is precious, handle with care.
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I, too, lost both my parents by the time I was 21. My father died suddenly of a massive cardiac event when I was 19. My mother succumbed to glioblastoma just after I turned 21. Watching her die of that horrible disease was compounded by the fact that I was still raw with grieving for my father. My parents had long been divorced, so I knew them in separate contexts. My mother’s husband was a miserable man; we had never gotten along. So when my mother passed it became clear that I was no longer welcome in what I thought was my home. All of the structures that supported me collapsed into rubble. I barely finish university, I persevered because I did not know what else to do. When I graduated I made bad choices — career and personal.
The long lasting effects have echoed and reverberated throughout my life. Even now,at 67, I know that I respond to stress and emotional assault ‘differently’. I have a wonderful husband of 32 years, two grown ‘high functioning’ sons yet my life is filled with unremitting sadness. My suicide attempt ended in failure; subsequent hospitalization and ECT treatments only made things worse. I am still crushingly depressed and contemplate suicide constantly.
When I lost my parents my mind was yet unformed. I cobbled together the finished product without their nurture. Now that my peers are losing their parents I can honestly say that there I never a good time to lose a parent. Losing them early, however, leaves a wound that never heals.
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I am so sorry for the losses you’ve suffered and the pain you are suffering.
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I lost my mom when I was 16, my dad when I was 24. It deeply affected me, and due to at times crippling anxiety I made less than optimal choices career wise and in my personal life. I’m now in my 60s and things are good in my life, but I wish I’d had more support getting here. Some commenters are critical of our feelings but I suspect they’ve never been there.
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Thank you for sharing your story so beautifully. I relate to the dread of wondering if the rest of your world will drop out from under you when you lose one parent, and the utter devastation when it happens. I lost my dad when I was a kid, and my mom last year. I'm in my 30s now, but it doesn't feel any less bewildering to me than it did at 9 years old. I have the most trouble with the thought of always being a guest at someone else's family gathering, until/unless I have a family of my own. But it also makes me want to be more inclusive and widen my circle when I do have a family.
14
Being 60 with both my parents alive, it is hard to relate to this article. But watching one's parents gradually lose their autonomy, gradually lose all they worked for their whole lives in order to live in assisted living, is not an easy road. Being at the end of the career makes me unable to help much other than visit and call. I often think if my parents had passed earlier, it would have been so much easier. No one is every happy and in the end, we all lose a loved one if we have been brave enough to love at all.
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So much of this felt familiar to me. I was abandoned by both parents. My mother flitted in and out of my life until she died when I was 13. I've always felt like a freak, a misfit, an outsider. Now that I have two little kids of my own, I cherish every moment (even the annoying ones). I think it's important to recognize the freedom that comes with orphanhood. While none of us would choose this, there is an opportunity to build the life you want entirely from scratch.
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Thanks for the article, very good. My dad died when I was 17 and my mother when 23. I was lucky my older brother and his wife really tried to step up and be a parent and grandparent. It was not the same but it gave me a place to call home, a place to go to for holidays. Someone to be excited when I had children and be Papa Jay and Granny Pearl for my kids. I had lots of therapy, married into a family I thought I wanted then resented them for not being my parents..... Weird how it affected so many of my relationships.
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"Friends never meant to be cruel. They momentarily forgot my circumstances, that I’d kill for those irritations."
I envy those that get to grieve. I envy those that lost something precious. Sometimes, I feel angry when I read articles like this because I feel invisible and forgotten in a world (at least the world around me)- where we mourn for and with those that have lost their parents but don't recognize the great grief of those that have never had them to begin with. My mom was bipolar and emotionally and psychologically absent and more often then not physically not present as well. My father and mother divorced when I was a baby and shortly after he remarried. My mother was also mostly estranged from her larger family so i had noone else as a surrogate, either. I wish for this kind of grief. I wish to have loved and been loved, and been safe, and taken care of in a world that made sense. For roots, for advice, for perspective. You grieve because you lost something precious. That too, is a gift.
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@Ipp Thank you for sharing this. You are right, and I'm so sorry for your loss.
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@Ipp I had a very similar youth as you describe. I have always longed to have parents. And I always tell people my childhood baggage (abandoned by both parents) is a reliable partner for life. Hugs to you!
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Honestly, what you need is therapy to address your pain, which I grant is very real. As a parent who has recently lost a child all I can say is that it's absurd to say that you want to experience grief associated with death.
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I was an orphan at age 4 1/2. That was too young to understand death at all. I give thanks to my aunt, uncle, and grandfather for them raising me and my older sister. Over the next 70 years I came to know what I had lost.
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A beautiful and thoughtful essay. Although my father died when I was 54 and my mother is still alive at 95, your words will help me make the most of my time with my children.
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Both my daughters were abandoned by their birth mothers at birth or shortly thereafter. Then at ages 18 and 20 their adoptive dad, my husband, passed away. I'm an older mom and the burden of being their only parent left after so many losses is heavy in terms of knowing they will lose me too at some point. The losses we suffer in life...there is nothing more painful.
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My father died of a very short illness (9 days after diagnosis) when I was 19. Then my mother was diagnosed with Stage2 cancer a year later. I thought I'd be an orphan before reaching 21. I am so profoundly sorry for your losses. My mother managed to survive cancer 3 times and lived with quality into her 80s. Though I was a young "half-orphan," I never found "my people" as a young adult. Unlike you, I was far too guarded and in denial about my grief and tried to pretend it didn't exist. I focused on being there for my mother but hurt myself needlessly in my 20s trying to escape that debilitating grief. Had I been as courageous as you volunteering with grieving children, I might have saved myself years of internal anguish and pain in those years. Plugging in and connecting with those suffering anguish at very young ages, gives one perspective like no other remedy or pill. Thank you for writing this beautiful and powerful essay for all of us who were/are half-orphaned and orphaned, a club none of us ever wanted to join.
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My brothers and I were orphaned when I was 22; I was the oldest sibling. I am still affected to this day. I have a wonderful life and family, but every major life event is always colored with the knowledge that our parents missed all of them. Thank you for describing so eloquently how it feels to lose both parents when you are young.
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Orphaned at 27, I felt a profound sense of abandonment for 10 years until I married.
Now at 72, I have become aware that I still live with an expectation that people will leave me.
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What a beautiful article and a reminder that whatever challenges life brings us, the answer is always love and to help someone else's life. A long time ago when I was losing my father I was crying my eyes out to my college dean who told me that eventually, the only family you have is the one you make. He was right.
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I was orphaned at 15 - my mum died of cancer, and on the morning of her funeral, my father dropped dead of a stroke. Friends and relatives arriving for a funeral found an unexpected double funeral.
Without them as fallback support I feel I've spent the last 50 years cautiously learning how to be an adult. I think I've almost got it now.
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@Frank Brown You have much to teach us, Frank. Please write the next article for the NYT.
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Growing up without parents wasn't as complicated to me as avoiding explanations of how and why to curious outsiders. Answering with the truth only prolonged the questioning. In my teens, I started to create fictitious stories of sudden deaths to shut down probing conversations. In my early adult years, I would become so hopelessly entangled in that web of lies, that I actually compiled a list of replies and studied the effectiveness of each. It wasn't until I confided the truth to an elderly neighbor that I realized, in my thirties, that all along I had been searching for a parent figure to whom I could shift that burden. If I could advise my younger self, I would encourage the use of the phrase: Why do you ask?
18
I (Maya Roth) read this on my husband's subscription and I have to thank you. The paradoxes and surreal reverberations of loss and changes to self/identity and future, as well as past come thru so well. I found myself laughing at a juncture that others might see as sad, and I knew that you opened that space of emotional range for that crazy mix. I started reading others of your essays listed: thank you for writing in public spaces about personal and social complexities. Ah.
7
Both my parents died from alcoholism before I was 30; I'm now nearly 75. I remember feeling very alone as I didn't know anybody my age who had experienced such losses. This was before self-help books or grief support groups so I floundered. My memories of them are vague now and I don't know who they were as people aside from being my parents. I marvel at peers who have old, very old, parents who are still alive. I simply cannot imagine. Thank you for this, Kelli. You nailed it.
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Deeply moving and heart breaking piece-
I feel less alone. Your insight beautifully written.
Thank you
23
The death of each of my parents during my 20s was central to major changes in my young life - my dad's coming months before college graduation and marriage, my mom's months after graduation from law school and the start of my practice. My transition to adulthood was bracketed by these huge emotional storms, and I felt alone in the face of the onslaught. With the benefit of long hindsight, I see that my parents' death contributed greatly to emotional problems that required years of counseling and medication, and contributed to the eventual end of that marriage. At the time, I felt I had to bury my grief and get on with supporting a family. Of course, burying grief opens you to changes you can't always control.
Now, after decades, the loss seems scarred over. When I see friends dealing with the decline and eventual death of their parents, I have mixed emotions. One part of me is glad I did not have to witness the ravages of aging in full attack on my parents. The other is sad that my parents could not enjoy their grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Thank you for this article.
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Thank you Kelli for your heart wrenching honesty and insight. I am one of a growing number of older first time fathers, fifty-four at the birth of my first, one and only son. I was an orphan for the first two years of my life, too. So, every time I do the selfish calculus of the projected lifetime of my son and me, I can only hope that one day, if and when he has a child that his joy be like that I enjoy in every moment of his existence so that it may balance his grief when I am dead.
13
I also lost my mother early, when I was just starting my own family. My father was already gone. Neither my father nor my mother had siblings, so no extended family. I have one sister, who lived far away from me.
Not a day goes by when there isn't some question I'd like to ask my mother - whether it was child-raising (my children are now adults) or health issues, or some family question I can never find a first hand answer to. It's always been a bit disorienting. I have my husband, and children, and now their families. But since my mother passed I always felt adrift.
Thank you for this article.
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@Lene
Our lives are so similar.
It's been many years but I have only recently found real comfort in literally "talking" to my mother every morning...thanking her for all she did for me when she was my mom, apologizing for not always appreciating her as a teen, and asking her for her guidance throughout the day.
It helps. I really feel her presence her at times. It's emotional at times, but I guess I never really worked through my feelings of abandonment when she passed.
13
Mom died when I was 24, Dad when I was 25. No siblings or cousins. I clung to my high school sweetheart husband long past reason, just because he was someone who knew me in the past. Couldn't bear children, mine are adopted. In the 30's, there was an occasional movie with a young woman who was "all alone in the world", like she dropped off of another planet. That has been me for most of my life. I've been lucky enough to always have good friends, asnd cherish them and my kids. We adapt.
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I lost my mother at 9 and my father at 21 so I found your article very poignant. I'm 65 now and very aware of how hard it has been to live my life without them. Of course, it isn't something you "get over." But you eventually learn to live with the pain and sadness. It can also confer a rare strength to meet any life challenge. Thanks for your article.
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Thank you for this very personal and moving article. It made me weep not just for you, but for my future self. I am so very lucky to still have both of my parents. I also fear the inevitable...and I am much older than you. You certainly made me aware of what is like to lose both parents at such a young age. My young nieces are in jeopardy of losing one of their parents to cancer very soon. Your article has given me knowledge and insight I will need to help them. Thank you. Well done.
16
I lost my dad when I was 17 and my only sibling at 25. While I still had my mom we were both broken and holidays unbearable. It wasn’t until I was married with children that the pain on holidays subsided. It is still hard. I always see the empty chairs and dream of what could have been.
41
My mother lost both of her parents in a car accident when she was a child. Surprisingly, I'm not sure how much sympathy she got (maybe its twin, the insipid pity). She still prickles at particular holidays (Christmas, Mother's Day) especially. I've inherited a bit of her loss--and was terrified my whole childhood it would happen to me. Still terrified of if/when it will happen, as an adult, decades later.
Anyway: this is fantastically written. Perfect, excellent piece.
26
What a wonderfully brave, sad, powerful piece.
33
In 2002 my two children lost their father to alcoholism when they were 24 and 21. So besides having to deal with his alcoholism their whole lives, they had to deal with their father’s premature death at age 50. His death has made me feel an even greater responsibility to always be there for my children because I am their only parent. They are married, highly educated professionals now with six children between them, but they both are also extremely close to me, and I have wondered at times if part of that closeness is a result of the loss of their father. I didn’t lose my parents until I was in my mid 50s, which, while emotionally devastating, is a more “natural” age to lose a parent. My children experienced a profound loss at a young age that I never had to experience until I was 30 years older. This essay was excellent at illuminating the emotional consequences of such a loss that I know my children endured, and to some extent, still do.
31
Thanks you for this. I lost both my parents in my twenties, within 2.5 years, and I was overseas for both of their deaths. 20 years later, with a husband and children of my own, I still reel from the shock of it, and steel myself when friends complain of phone calls and holidays with their parents. The loss of identity you describe is profound. I find myself selfishly unsympathetic sometimes when a friend’s elderly parent does die, but try to remember I had 25 years with them, and lots of wonderful memories...but still.
56
This is great! I lost my mom when I was 13 (a long time ago!) and I still get annoyed when friends complain about their mothers-- now it's the burden of caring for their elderly mothers. I've served as a volunteer grief group facilitator for teens and young adults at the Children's Grief Center of Albuquerque--such fulfilling work. Thank you for sharing your story-- it resonates so very deeply
49
@Jennifer Simpson
You just brought back a memory of a friend I had who lost her mother when she was 13. We would go to her house after school and I remember thinking how empty the house seemed. Her father was working of course and she was the one to be the mother figure in the house. I did not realize until just now, how much she must have been going through. I haven't thought of her in almost 50 years but can still see the bright and lonely looking house in my minds eye. I myself lost my father at age 2 and half who left four children, including my twin brother and a 33 year old wife. She remarried 6 months later to a man who never had blood of his blood and my mom erased all of my father, pictures, relatives, conversation, to have us think my stepdad was our father. Luckily my mom's parents were alive and were wonderful supportive grandparents who I was blessed to have until I was 27 and 37. I never told them how much I appreciated all that they did. My dad had a very large family. My mom kept us all from them. Mom was an only child. My siblings favored my mom's side of the family and I favored my dad's. His family reached out to me when I was 18. To see aunts and uncles and cousins that looked like me and my siblings was shocking to me so I retreated and that is the saddest thing. My mom went looking for him in the bottom of a bottle and at 90 still misses my dad. Cousins turned out to be successful career people and human beings. Be kind, for everyone struggles.
4
Kelli,
How beautifully you render one of life's great tragedies. I am so sorry for your losses and inspired by how you're helping these young people as they try to navigate the road no one wants to be on.
I'm very lucky to have my parents long into my adulthood, but losing them is my soft underbelly. I never mind phone calls, or time spent helping them, or just the magic of hanging out when we can, especially when I think of people like yourself (or the number of my friends who had very similar experiences to you, around your age).
Thank you for such a gorgeous essay and the reminder to value and appreciate what we have...especially as we know that nothing is guaranteed.
32
Thank you for this article. I lost both of my parents within three years, my last parent to die was my mom, she passed in March. I’m 32. I never thought I would lose them this early on in on my life. Who do you belong to, who will you become, who are you now without them? So many blistering and painful thoughts come and go throughout the day. I’m so glad you found your tribe. Searching for your tribe is important but especially after both of your parental units. I realized that I had a lot of identity in being their daughter, so now that they are gone I don’t know who I am. This article was really timely and needed. Thank you for your glimpse into your life.
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