To die when age has swallowed all joy,
To die before age has had a chance to mature;
We can survive neither without the Giver of Life.
The father of former NFL quarterback and Heisman–Trophy winner Doug Flutie died of a heart attack while in the hospital for an unrelated illness. The news rocked Flutie and his family. They’d barely taken in that news when, within an hour, his mother died of a sudden heart attack as well. Flutie lost both parents within a few minutes of each other. In interviews, Flutie said, “They say you can die of a broken heart, and I believe it.”
With our attention in these pages on those whose parents are aging, our sensitivity increases for those whose parents died too young.
As I mentioned earlier, my dad didn’t have the opportunity to age. He stepped into heaven before he could step into retirement, Social Security, or the number that once denoted “old.” At sixty-four, his heart failed him.
My father and mother had devoted themselves wholeheartedly to their chosen professions. Mom had retired early from nursing. Dad had little desire to retire, but he and Mom planned that when he reached sixty-five, he would lay down his director’s baton and they would travel across the United States in an RV, stopping at national parks and reconnecting with friends they’d made over the years.
In going through some of my mother’s papers just a few years ago, I discovered a note about one of the most poignant moments following Dad’s death. The two of them had already ordered an RV. Mom had to call and cancel the order.
Sheila says that her greatest grief is not having had the opportunity to be there for her parents as they aged. “Both of my parents died of sudden illnesses. They were laughing one day and gone in an instant. Mom, at a vibrant sixty-nine, broke her leg and died of what the doctors suspected later was a blood clot. Daddy died almost a year later of a heart attack. He, too, was active and still ran his farm.”
Some claim that any time a parent dies, it’s too soon.
Those who watch a parent linger through a long, draining illness or in a state that dangles precariously between this life and the next—or those who sit in a vigil over a parent whose dying process is a belly-crawl through a minefield of excruciating pain might disagree. Would disagree.
Psalm 6:3 (NIV) reads, “My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long?” It’s a cry heard over many a deathbed. From the lips of the dying. From the lips of those encircling the bed.
But other cries reach God’s ears.
“I didn’t have a chance to say good-bye.”
“I was still in the air, on my way to his side, when he breathed his last. So many regrets.”
“Our last conversation by phone ended poorly. I was irritable and tired. My mother knew how to bring that out of me. But it’s not how I wanted our relationship to end. If I’d known we’d never share another conversation. . . .”
“I promised myself—and my kids—that I’d cut through all the passive-aggressive dance moves my father and I knew and finally tell him how I really felt. I wanted us to start fresh. We didn’t have the chance.”
“What I most regret is that I didn’t tell her I loved her.”
“What I most regret is that I never heard my father tell me he loved me.”
Too soon. Too soon.
And we’re asked to believe—by faith—that long before we’re born, God is aware of the length of our days, the span of our parents’ lives. The same God who orders our steps, who knows the end from the beginning—and our end—is the One who provides for the ache of unfulfilled longings and soul-piercing regrets.
My maternal grandmother died when my mother was starting her sixth year as a parent, with her fourth child a newborn. Mom often talked about how much she missed not having her mother to consult as she raised her children. Mom was competent and accomplished, a strong woman with strong opinions and exceptional nursing skills. But she felt the absence of the woman who for nine months had felt my mom’s heart beat under hers. The woman who taught her to stand. To read. To draw the lines that spelled “Dorothy.” The mother who shook her head when her daughter skipped away from supper cleanup to ride her horse or who opted to help her brothers bale hay rather than learn to bake bread. The mother who scolded her and loved her and could have taught her how to manage life’s harsh seasons.
My grandmother had survived the loss of a child to cancer. She’d fed her family during reed-thin lean years. She’d welcomed a troubled brother-in-law into her home, endured his debilitating depression, and quietly cleaned up the mess after he shot himself in their living room.
When my mom was barely alive in those last few days, she said I had Grandma Stone’s laugh. I didn’t know my grandmother well enough or long enough to have heard her laugh. But I wish I’d let Mom hear it more often.
Within the last week, two acquaintances told me that they were teens when a parent died. Too soon. Too soon. They never had the opportunity to experience the parent-child relationship as adult-to-adult. They missed having the parent proud and present for high-school graduation, college graduation, wedding, first grandchild, first gray hair.
And now they are approaching aging with no family precedence as a landmark.
The camaraderie of loss links those whose parents die too soon and those who live to whatever the current definition is of “ripe old age.” Loss binds us together. Sympathy flows both ways. Compassion for one another’s pain builds community. If we let it.
“Bear one another’s burdens,” the apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 6:2 (ESV). That’s God’s heart—that we help shoulder each other’s burdens as our parents age . . . or when they aren’t given the opportunity to age.
Who do you know is grieving a parent who died too soon? Is it you? A friend? A young person in your church? A neighbor? How can you—even in a small, but hope-giving way—help shoulder that person’s heartache, identify with their struggle, or meet a practical need?
God designed it so the weight we bear, crushing as it seems, grows lighter when we offer to help carry the weight that stoops another. It defies explanation, but it’s true.
The common thread
Woven through
Humanity
Unbreakable
Inescapable
Unavoidable
With no regard
For status
Or ethnicity
For race
Or education
For accomplishment
Or lack of it
For gender
Or politics
Or age
Is grief.
Grief unites us.
Makes us one.
We have that in common.