What Losing a Parent Taught Me About Living

Four Years Later

Four years have passed since my mom died. In that time, friends and family have lost more people. My grandmother died a year ago. My uncle died over the summer.

I can’t speak for anyone else’s grief—it’s unique, unruly, and on a timeline of its own. But time and loss have taught me two more things about my own.

[I wrote about losing my mom a few years ago. You can read that piece here.]

But first, a moment from before

Four months before my mom died, she called me to say goodbye.

It was this time of year—October—on a Saturday. My wife and I were walking the dogs when my phone rang.

She’d been seriously sick since the previous May and fragile for the better part of 15 years. I thought she was recovering. Things, however, were worse.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, answering the call.

“Hi, I’m just calling to say goodbye,” she said.

“Goodbye?!” I shouted incredulously into the receiver.

I stopped walking. The trees around me swayed.

“Nothing’s working,” she said. “Your dad will explain.”

My ears rang. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. A red-tailed hawk flew overhead.

“I love you,” I squeaked out. What was happening?

“Thanks,” she said.

Years in perspective

My mom was complicated, but I was lucky enough to have her in my life into my 30s. Even if she’d been sick for much of it. Even if she’d been hiding it for longer.

The emotions around death are like a soup. Some flavors stand out while others are indistinguishable. Still others linger long after.

For me, the lingering flavor was anger.

I was angry she didn’t try harder when she was alive. I was angry she didn’t fight. Angry she never changed her behaviors.

But four months after my mom died, my daughter was born.

Suddenly, I was experiencing parenthood from the other side. And with it came a new understanding of what I’d lost—and what I could become.

Losing a Parent, Becoming One

First, losing my mom made me more human.

Before her death, I was inflated by life—my abilities, my sense of time, and my place within it. Good parents can give us that sense of invincibility. But eventually, life has a way of deflating us.

When I was younger, Christmas at my grandmother’s was grand. I didn’t recognize that for my grandmother, dad, and aunt, there was always a hole at the table. Someone was missing.

I see that now.

Most rooms, I’ve come to believe, are filled with someone’s ghosts. And most of us bring them with us.

Losing my mom didn’t just change how I understood my own life. It changed how I understood everyone else’s.

Second—and here’s the one people don’t often talk about—losing my mom gave me freedom to make new choices.

Choices I might never have made while she was alive.

Without realizing it, I was often acting—or reacting—for her approval, favor, consideration, or even in spite of her. After she died, such behaviors felt hollow.

It wasn’t that she was standing in my way. It was that I’d allowed her expectations—real or imagined—to shape my choices.

I don’t think I ever would have pursued an MBA while my mom was alive. She may even have frowned upon it. But the truth is, I’d never seriously considered it.

And without her, I began to reconsider which choices were actually mine.

Bereavement unifies and individualizes

My grief, though unique and personal, connected me to others. And the choices I began making for myself connected me more fully to who I am.

Sometimes, when I think about my daughter, I have this crazy thought.

Should I be lucky enough to say goodbye to her on my deathbed—many years from now, I hope—I’d like to tell her something I’ve only come to understand after losing my own mom:

“You may carry me with you. But I hope you find losing me brings you closer to others—and yourself.”