8 years ago I lost my dad to cancer, then in 2017, my mother followed him. The next year my 52-year-old baby sister died. Leaving a brother I had lost contact with and hadn't seen for 10 years. I found my brother this past April but the day before I was to speak to him he passed from cancer. Now I am the only one left and I can't help but wonder why I am still here and they are not. I am almost 60 years old and have heart and lung disease. I may be joining them sooner than I realize, but anyway....

I was my sister's primary caretaker and watching her mental and physical health decline slowly and painfully broke my heart. You see I knew my sister was going to die....Mentally, but emotionally I didn't get it until after she was gone. I was totally and completely devastated. My sister and I were close even sharing an apartment for years.

Anyway, I am left with some song lyrics from Don Mclean's "Empty Chairs"..."I wonder if you know, that I never understood, that although you said you'd go, until you did I never thought you would."

It is coming up on Christmas soon and I will probably end up alone or with someone else's family trying to pretend to be happy. This sux!!! R_O_Y_A_L_L_Y!!!

I lost my only brother, my only sibling,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 hope more people will join that I can connect with, no one really understands what this is like.
Thank you,

Erin

I lost my entire immediate family (my mother and sister) in 15 days back in December 2022 and these have been the biggest and most profound losses of my life. My sister had battled Stage 4 (metastatic) breast cancer for 4 years, and it even though it was an estranged and complex relationship, when my mother (she was alive at the time) notified me, it shook me to my core.

And then, if that loss wasn't enough, my mother contracted a very strong COVID variant (I assume it was XBB in addition to having another virus like Influenza at the same time) and she died tragically and unexpectedly in Mexico where she had been living for quite awhile. 

I was beyond traumatized and in shock when I received news of her sudden death, and then was further traumatized by certain events that took place in the aftermath involving her biological family who were just horrible to deal with, so I was more or less, alone in dealing with these catastrophic events. I had PTSD and felt like I had been dropped into a war zone (the level of trauma was/is too much to even put into words really).

Like the previous poster, Erin, I hope more of us who are in our 40s and above who have dealt with losing entire immediate families can find solace and support each other. 

If you are in a similar boat, don't hesitate to reach out to me.

-Hallie