The Complexity of Loss in Your Late Twenties

Death is an integral part of the human experience; it can occur six degrees separate from us, or as close to home as the loss of a parent or a sibling. However it manifests in your own individual life story, it stands to reason that the age in which you’re faced with mortality can affect how you process the grief that accompanies it. 

I consider myself fortunate to have gone 27 years without an immense corporeal loss. Sure, I mourned the passing of each of my four grandparents, felt the profound sadness that comes with the passing of a cherished childhood pet, and attended my fair share of funerals. But, I’ve yet to experience the life-altering loss that I watched so many of those close to me endure. 

Things all came into perspective for me this past week with the passing of my last living grandparent, the latin matriarch who survived the loss of two of her children before her, and still persisted bravely for 97 hard-won years of earthly dwelling. Her death bore with it the significance that I no longer possess any ties to the generation that preceded my parents. It was as if that chapter of my young life had officially ended. I am no longer mourning just the being-my grandmother-but my childhood as I know it to be. 

There are other markers of becoming an adult, of course. For instance, being kicked off of your parent’s health insurance plan at 26, moving into your first apartment, or fully funding your phone bill and car insurance payment. However, none of these things holds a candle to the profound, internal shift that comes with facing the fact that your parents are getting older right alongside you. 

Your weekly power walks with mom have suddenly become a leisurely amble that allows her to keep up; you’re now the one who gets the glass from the top shelf, as your dad can no longer climb to reach it with ease. Those figures that once represented invincibility, steadfastness, and immense strength, now reveal themselves to be human; prone to failure, defeat, and setbacks, just like us. 

At some point, we are all faced with the reality that this is our parent’s first time living, too. And with this awareness, comes the need to reassess the roles in which we play. A need for grace and compassion is born, as we’re presented with new challenges that come as a result of growing older. 

So while there is an overwhelming sense of sadness and nostalgia, as the number of candles on our birthday cakes’ continues to grow, isn’t it beautiful that we get to meet the tender embrace of the sun another day? There’s a special kind of pain in seeing the creases deepen and wrinkles multiply, denoting your parents’ increasing age. But, the alternative is a reality far more cumbersome to contend with. 

Life cannot exist without death, happiness has no place without sadness to keep it in perspective; hope cannot be maintained without devastation giving it reason for endurance.

Perspective is everything.