There are different tiers in life – almost everything, has a hierarchy. 

There’s the president of a company, the VP, assistants to them and then there’s the trickle down workforce… us… the worker bees. 

I remember my great grandmother, aka Bushie, who passed at the ripe old age of 95. She was at the top of our tier, as a family. When she passed, she was survived by four of her remaining children, my grandmother being one of them. At the time of my Bushie’s death, my grandmother, Nana, was 76. We would celebrate Bushie’s birthday every year, she was the reigning matriarch, as if it could be her last birthday. And then another year would pass, we would celebrate again and again and again… until it happened. I was 36 when she passed. 

Bushie’s husband had died in 1958 of kidney cancer, as the family tells me. She had spent the remaining 33 years of her life living with my Nana, yet I wonder how alone she must have felt – she never dated nor remarried. 

Children, neighbors, friends, family – it’s wonderful to have these people in our lives, but they just don’t equal the bond between a husband and a wife. I suspect this was the case for my Bushie. 

When Bushie died, that left my Nana, the oldest survivor in the family tree. Her husband, my grandfather, had passed by then. My Nana never dated or remarried, either, and she passed in 1996, at the age of 81. As we were going through her belongings, I came across a ticker tape from my Bushie’s last trip to the hospital from her heart monitor. I kept it because on the back of it, my Nana had written “My dearest mother’s last heartbeat.”

This has stuck with me over the years, that even though my Bushie lived an extremely long time, and my grandmother was in her 70’s when she died, it was still not easy for her. They were lucky to have each other. Maybe that’s what kept them living all those years.

Death of a close loved one is never easy, no matter the length of life. 

Those deaths left my mom at the top of our family tree. She was the oldest of all the relatives. My father passed before my mother. My mom never wavered in her strength or her loss. She lived almost another 20 years after my dad passed. I wish I could have understood her loss now that I know what I know. We, her kids, had our kids and family and although we all felt the loss of our dad, we were busy, living life. I don’t recall that if I ever once asked her how she was doing. She always seemed fine. But now, I realize that’s the mask we have to put on . I put it on every day. You have to, in order to keep going… until ….

Mom passed in 2019. 

Now, I’m at the top of the chain. If death goes according to age, I’m next in line. 

I lost Steve in 2021. All of my kids , even though they’re here for me, they live their lives, and as they should. But …

Now, it’s just me…. Lonely at the top.