Chris Buckley

Chris Buckley HERE has some fun with being an orphan at 55; obviously he is being quasi-comical, although what he writes here is true:

One realization does dawn upon the death of the second parent, namely that you’ve now moved into the green room to the River Styx. You’re next.

I would go Buckley one more and suggest that not only are you next, but you are not guaranteed to have anyone care when it happens. Friends may come and go, lovers come and go, siblings become pissed you haven't paid them back for that Kool-Man truck investment you tricked them into.

But a mother is the only one that will cling to your pants cuff as you're dragged to the execution chair, the only one that even after insurmountable evidence would declare her love and belief in you; genuinely surprised anyone could think such a thing of you. And a father, even if he knows you fucked up, will defend you til the end. So when you wake up one day and you find that the only two people in the world who were born to love you unconditionally are gone and are never coming back, there is a feeling of well, ... that's that. No blanket, no umbrella, no nothing - just sheer fucking rawness, exposed. All the time, every day, until you die. No matter how long it takes.

Maybe that's bad, maybe that's good, I don't know. Even today, I feel like a complete pussy for even wondering so; but it would be a nice feeling to think that if I died suddenly today someone would HAVE to care. Something Mr. Buckley knows himself now.