My father, like Susie's Dad, passed away about a year ago. Reading her post made me wonder about something. Both my parents are passed now, and I still feel loss in many different ways, but one of the ways is one I never could have expected - a loss of a piece of me, a role I played.
I'm the oldest child, and I guess I didn't really appreciate what that actually meant to me while my parents were alive. At least when they were talking to me, I had the sense that some of what they said was steeped in an expectation of responsibility as the oldest child. This "steeping" starts early, I can hear it in myself when I explain to our daughter that I have different - higher - expectations of her behavior than her brother because she's older. I'm sure I heard that when I was a kid - maybe it just sticks. I can't say I ever heard that as an adult, but perhaps that's the filter that some things went through after a while.
It's not a haunting loss, but it's still a noticeable one, more than a year after I last spoke with my Dad. I wonder if it's common for the oldest child to somehow miss the sense of being the oldest child after parents pass.