On Becoming Orphaned

I know it’s a funny word choice at my age, but feeling orphaned after losing your parents is real. And as we approach the 8-year mark since Mom’s passing (tomorrow), I’ve been more reflective. I’ve made several posts on social media to memorialize her.

Since losing Dad two years and two months ago, almost, I’ve had that feeling of being an orphan, parentless. And though I’m well equipped at 55 to face life without them, it still sucks. I can’t send Dad an e-mail or post to his Facebook funny memes, favorite songs, or pick up the phone to tell him I’m thinking about and thankful for him. Nor my Mom, though she loathed social media. She’d pick up the phone once a quarter and catch-up for an hour or so, if she hadn’t heard from me.

I miss their presence in my life even if it wasn’t immediate. Just knowing they were a phone cal, an e-mail or a Facebook post away gave me great comfort. Now that they are gone, there is a noticeable void in my life.

And forget my family! That unit disintegrated the moment my Mom was gone. We knew right away she had been the glue holding us together. Grief and sibling rivalry took over. It’s been a slow decline ever since. I still have two siblings I don’t associate with, especially since Dad’s passing in October 2021.

It was bad enough losing them, but losing our sense of family? That’s made it doubly rough.

My parents were young lovers who first met during middle school. They didn’t attend the same school, but lived just blocks from each other in the Tower Heights neighborhood of Princeton, Indiana. Dad says he first noticed my Mom while delivering the newspaper. He was smitten.

They were just 20 years old in the photo above, standing in the snow outside my grandparent’s house, holding a young Christopher. I was blessed to have young, hip parents who were cool to hang around. All my childhood and high school friends liked them. I like to say we grew up together, my parents and I.

We didn’t always remain close. My leaving the church around 2005 was difficult for them to accept. My divorce seven years later was even more so and drove a wedge, particularly between my mother and I. But her cancer diagnosis in 2014 changed all that. Just months after my failed attempt during Spring Break in Panama City Beach to bridge the gap, my mother called me with the news. We cried together, then came together that summer. I’ll never forget our conversation on her back porch in Noblesville, IN, when we finally reached understanding.

This time of year—October and November—is especially hard these days. As I mentioned, tomorrow marks eight years since Mom left us. It doesn’t get all that much easier. I just find writing, whether in my journal, this blog or on social media, therapeutic, so thank you for obliging me. Becoming an orphan, even at 53, sucks. It’s difficult to come to terms with. Your parents are monumental in shaping your self image. Once they are gone, you do a lot of evaluating, at least I have. I came away thankful for the gifts they bestowed and the character they helped to shape in me. I know they are/were proud of me, their oldest child. I can take some comfort in that.

Rest in peace, Mom and Dad, your eldest orphan.