By Janice M. Simon
October 25, 2017

It was unseasonably cool for August in Oklahoma the night my mother passed away. The battle with cancer was brief and futile.

My brother, sister and I looked around for the grownups and realized we forty-somethings were it. We were the ones on the front lines.

The next few days were filled with funeral arrangements, calling relatives, and eating copious amounts of homemade casseroles. Our aunts, uncles, and cousins were there with my two siblings and myself. One aunt helped my brother and I pick out the final outfit for Mom and suggested songs for the service.

Two years ago, when my father passed away, I wrote an essay here about how we had to help our nieces and nephew through their grieving, and in turn, the aunts and uncles helped Mom and us kids. This time, the contrast was stark. After everyone went home, we would be left to ourselves without our parents and doing the hard "adulting" on our own.

But we weren’t alone. Not really.

Our beloved aunts and uncles stayed within reach. After all, they lost their sister or brother, and my cousins lost their aunt and uncle. We were joined in our raw, collective grief with much needed connections.

With our aunts and uncles, we have the tender thread that connects us to our parents. In them, we see their shared traits, gestures, and shared stories, and for a brief moment of comfort, we have our parents beside us.

As my siblings and I make our way on this new journey of ours, we are grateful to the aunts, uncles and cousins who have surrounded us with love.

Photo: Daisy Daisy