I was alone in my grief when my parents died – but missing them gave me the answer

As an only child, when my mum and dad both died within three months of each other, the walls of my reality crumbled – suddenly, I was an adult orphan

Turning 36 isn’t much of a milestone for most, but for me it marks a decade since the year that will always divide my life into a “before” and “after”. I was 26 when my dad died of cancer. Three months later, my mum died of a brain aneurysm. Suddenly, I was an adult orphan, selling up the family home where I’d grown up, eradicating the safety net I’d known all my life.

What really amplified the enormity of this loss was being an only child. Of course, having siblings isn’t a guarantee that grief will be shared or lessened – there are numerous reasons why this may not be the case. But for me, even with brilliant friends and relatives, the lack of a direct line to those people – someone who knew them like I did – felt absolutely gutting. When my dad died, my mum and I would try to distract ourselves with TV, but inevitably end up just talking and crying and reminiscing – it helped. When I lost her, I also lost the ability to talk about either of them with that level of intimacy. It’s a grieving tool that’s so needed, but that no one else aside from the people you’ve shared a life with can provide.

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