Death runs in my Family

the author speaks about her many losses

Of course, death runs in every family. But in mine, it is premature death—a relentless pattern of sudden loss that began long before my time. I’m no stranger to this fear, or to the grief it inevitably brings.

My dad’s side of the family set the terrifying precedent. He lost his little sister, Wilma Jean, in 1967 at the age of 32. She was beaten to death, or so I was told. I was about five then. Just three years later, when I was eight, my dad had a heart attack; he barely survived.

Years went by uneventfully, but the pattern quickly resumed. In 1978, my Aunt Moriene died of a heart attack at 56. In 1979, my Uncle Monroe followed, also from a heart attack at 56. Then, in 1980, my Uncle Arthur died of cancer at 68. I had very few memories of these relatives, but their sudden deaths instilled a primal fear of losing my father. I loved this man, and yet I knew in my bones he wasn't going to live a long life. The dread crystallized at Uncle Arthur’s funeral; watching my dad walk down the hall with his last remaining brother, Elbert, I remember wondering: Which one would be next?

That question was answered three years later in 1983 when Uncle Elbert died of a brain tumor at 53. I was heartbroken for my dad—they had been so close.

Four years later, on April 1, 1987, we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday, so happy he had made it out of his fifties. Nine days later, he died of a massive heart attack. We were all devastated. At the time, I thought this was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.

But then came the worst thing: On December 17, 1988, my little sister Angela died in a horrific car accident at age 19. The police said they had never seen an accident that bad. I thought about my dad's history—how his little sister had been the first loss for his family. Now, in my own generation, my little sister was the first to go. I grieved with extreme anger and had no way of coping. I watched life go on for everyone else, while our family was going through a horrific tragedy. Then, the sun set, the sun rose, and life went on.

As with my dad’s family, life continued mostly uneventfully for a while. Babies were born, marriages took place, and holidays came and went. Then in 2000, my brother died at the age of 39. In 2013, my sister found out she had cervical cancer. She died eight months later, on December 17, 2013—exactly 25 years to the day of my little sister's death. Everyone else in my family had died suddenly and without warning; I used to think it would be nice to know ahead of time. But we all watched Debbie suffer, and I would take a car accident any day over a terminal illness.

As always, life went on. Then in 2022, my daughter Melissa died at the age of 31 from cardiac dysrhythmia brought on by low potassium and low sodium, likely related to lithium treatment for bipolar disorder.

And here I am again, in the throes of grief for Melissa. If anything good—if that is even possible—came from the devastating losses before her, it is this: I have learned how to navigate it; I am not paralyzed. I barely survived Angela’s death, and I know if Melissa was the very first loss, I’m not sure I would have survived at all. The past tragedies have been a devastating, unwanted education in survival.