I lost my wife yesterday, the only reason I'm still here is i promised my kids they wouldn't lose both of us the same day.

Hi Jarrod,

First of all, I am very sorry for the loss of your wife. Ironically I lost my only brother, my only sibling, the same day you lost your wife, 4/14/23. I am the sole survivor of my family of origin. Our father passed away in 2010 and our mother passed away in 2020 (non-covid related), I am grateful that my brother was able to help me grieve those losses, I am really struggling as to how I grieve his loss without him. I am “only” 52 and to think of the rest of my life without anyone left who remembers me as a baby, or the stories we shared with and without our parents, to not have one of the 3 left if I need to talk, need help, or guidance or just to share joy with anymore. Not many people truly understand where I am coming from, because most people my age still may have both parents, or 1 parent, all of their siblings or some of their siblings. There’s just some solace even as a 52 year old woman to know there was one person on the planet that knew my back-story and would always have my back no matter what, in a way only a parent or sibling can. Sometimes when I think about the gravity of this loss, the pain and loneliness take my breath away. Most of the information I can find on-line is geared to elderly people who have lost their last sibling. I haven’t been able to find much coping info on mid-lifers or younger who find themselves as the “last ‘man’ standing” of their family of origin, so to speak. I know we have different circumstances that brought us here to this group. I just wanted to reach out and say hello, since I am not finding a lot of recent posts on here in some of the groups I have looked at. Take care. Erin