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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
I'm it.…the main matriarchal figure! I feel a sudden sense of responsibility.
MARINA, AGE FORTY-SEVENMy mother rarely treated me as an adult. Without her influence, I feel more grown-up and responsible for myself.
ANGEL, AGE THIRTY-FIVEThe death of a parent is a wake-up call for most adults; it is a call to confront the reality of mortality as the adult child joins the next generation in line for death. In many ways, both literal and symbolic, children remain children until their parents die. Lynn explains:
It makes you an orphan. I don't think it would make any difference how old you were. While your parents are living, every time you go back home, you become their child again and it's a parent-child relationship whether you're an adult or not. When you lose your parents, then you're the grown-up…. There's nobody to be a child with.
A sense of relinquishing childhood is a hallmark of parent loss. Thomas, thirty-six, describes the transition to adulthood:
With her death it was a closure to my childhood. There was no way back, no path back to childhood. There's no reason for me to go back to Baltimore. The death gave me an opportunity to sit back and look at myself and say, “Okay, I'm truly an adult now. Now, am I self-sufficient?” Even though, you know…as long as your parent is alive you can always think, “Well, I can always go home.” Well, home took on a different meaning to me now. Home is my house and my things.
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