Orphaned at 67 - Dealing with the Death of Parents

I'm 67 years old as I write this and I was orphaned on September 4, 2007. The process of "orphanization" actually began on July 10, 1985, when my father died. The process was completed with the death of my mother. [Interestingly, I was 67 when my mother died; she was 67 when my father died.]

My family had some warning about my father's impending death. He had been in a coma (or at least was non-responsive) for approximately eight months. A week before his actual death, we received a call from the Iowa Veterans Home, where he was a resident, that the family needed to get down there right away, because he was beginning to fail. Although his condition was not quite as critical as the Home made it sound, it was very bad, and he slowly died over the next seven days. I was in his room when he stopped breathing. In many ways, for me, he had died eight months earlier when he stopped communicating with us.

My mother's death was more sudden. She had had heart problems for years, but when the end came, it was a matter of hours. We were called from the Veterans Home (She had moved into the Home a month before Dad died and had remained there as a surviving spouse.) that she was in critical condition and was being transferred to the local hospital. An hour later, we were told that she had died. There was no way we could have gotten to Iowa from the Twin Cities (where we live) in order to be with her when she died. It was soon after her death that it struck me that my wife and I were both orphans. Her parents had died years earlier. Now my parents were gone.

What do I take from all of this?

First, it's much easier to lose your parents when you're older than when you're younger. That may seem obvious to many, but when you've had years to bond with your parents and assume that they will always be there, it is difficult when they die. Even so, life is much less disrupted than if the parents die when the children are young. We knew Mom was going to die someday, and my wife and I had even speculated when leaving after a visit if that visit would be the last one. It's one thing to speculate; it's quite another to experience the reality-to know that there will be no more phone calls, no more trips to Marshalltown, Iowa, to see her, no more buying of Christmas gifts, and no more concerns about her health. We learned about her death, we planned the funeral and went through the funeral, we buried her, and, in many ways, that completed her life on earth-except for the memories that will come at expected times (holidays, for example) and unexpected times. Still, I would rather have lost her when we did rather than early in life when the presence of parents is so much more crucial.

Second, there is the recognition that it doesn't take long to erase some of the evidences of a person's earthly existence. My sister had planned to go to Marshalltown to see Mom on the day she died. I managed to call her before she left home and she went straight to the hospital where she learned that Mom had died. From the hospital, my sister and her husband went to the Veterans Home and ended up emptying Mom's room of all her possessions. Mom's name had even been removed from its place beside the door to her room. No doubt, someone new has now been in her old room for several days now.

If the physical traces of our existence are quickly removed, how important it is that we live lives that continue on in others-both in memories and in ways of living. Mom and Dad both taught us kids that family is very important and so is hard work, and that the two go together in a multitude of ways. Those two simple lessons-and others-have been part of my life and have influenced the way I have lived my life. In many ways, Mom and Dad are gone; in many other ways, they still live.

Third, I have learned some lessons from my parents on how to be a parent. Among the lessons: the willingness to invest time in family, to work hard to provide for the needs of the family, to never stop being a parent, even when the children have moved out of the home and moved on with their own lives, and so on. To be honest, I also learned some things that I didn't want to be or to do when I became a parent.

Fourth, I have learned that there is a time to say goodbye and put the past behind, or, more accurately, to integrate part of the past into the present and to live it into the future. There will always be times of saying goodbye to people. That is part of living. That does not mean, however, that we are live in the past. That is destructive. We are to take the best from the past and make it part of how we live today and tomorrow. If we have been loved in the past, let us love today and as long as we live. We cannot live in the past, but the past can live in us. That's a critical distinction to make.

Fifth, I have learned that, as a believer in the Christian hope of the resurrection, I can deal with the death of loved ones in a positive way. It doesn't mean that I don't grieve; it means that my grief is not hopeless or crushing. Mom often told us kids that the first thing she was going to do when she died was to tell off Dad for leaving her so soon! She had a belief that her relationship with him was not finished, even though he had died 22 years earlier.

But there is a time to say goodbye. In a book of memories that Mom wrote years ago, she had a piece titled, "End of A Marriage." It was a look back on the day before my father was buried:

"The last night before his funeral, I had a chance to be alone with him at the funeral home. As I stood by his casket holding his hand, I couldn't help but think of our marriage. A few stormy seasons-but, as a whole, happy and really great. We had obtained many of the things I had hoped for. It ended too soon for both of us. I had always wondered who would be the first to leave and how. He looked so peaceful there in his casket. We had accomplished a lot in our marriage, and we had a great group of caring children. I looked and looked at that face that was so familiar and that I loved so much, and said "Happy landings, honey," and squeezed his hand one more time. I touched his cheek, then walked out without looking back. I knew then that I would never look upon his face before burial. How does someone say "So long" to 46 years of one's life?"

Chances are that most of us will come to the point where we say "So long" to a loved one. The glory of the Christian faith is that those times of saying "So long" can be followed someday by a reunion with that loved one.

My wife and I may be orphans for now, but someday...