Six years later, I consider myself even luckier for having that moment with Mom and the girls, and my appreciation for the specific, compounding relationship between grief and gratitude continues to grow.
I was the first of our friend group to lose both parents. Becoming an adult orphan is disorienting no matter how old you are, no matter how much your parents’ deaths are anticipated, no matter the natural order of things. There are four of us in the club now. That’s what we call it: The Club Nobody Wants To Belong To. As the de facto President, I purchased a navy members-only jacket that we passed along to Nancy last February when her mom died. We all flew in to be with her, of course. We keep showing up for each other, the way we always have since college. It’s what we do.
There’s a photo from that night of Nancy’s mom’s funeral. Everyone had departed except for her immediate family and us… the girls.
Other people would simply see a group of women with their arms around each other, smiling for the camera as if at a birthday party or reunion. When I look at that picture, my heart somehow expands further than it did that morning years ago, when my friends climbed into bed with Mom. I see a group of women who understand even more deeply what it means to be lucky, and how lucky we are to keep holding each other up.
Sarah Gormley’s debut memoir, “The Order of Things” is the story of how her return to the family farm to care for her dying mother changed her life in ways she never imagined possible. She owns Sarah Gormley Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, which operates from the belief that original art can be a source of joy for everyone.
This piece was previously published on HuffPost and is being shared again as part of HuffPost Personal’s “Best Of” series.