Six years ago, I became a sole survivor.

What is a “sole survivor?” It’s a term I learned from an article I read a few years ago. It describes people who have outlived their childhood families. The people who knew you before you became who you are today. The people with whom you formed your earliest memories. The people who shared your childhood, your history, and a part of your life that can never be recreated.

The article discussed Caroline Kennedy, who became the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis after her brother John died in a plane crash in 1999.

Her aunt Lee also became the sole survivor of her childhood family after Jackie died in 1994. In her autobiography, she discussed the terrible burden of being the last one left. How lonely she felt, even though she was surrounded by her children and grandchildren.

It’s a loneliness I know very well.

My brother Randy died in 1994, and my other brother Larry died in 2020. And although you grow up knowing that, in the natural order of things, your parents will probably die before you, you never really think about losing your siblings.

Your siblings are supposed to grow old with you. They’re supposed to be there when you reminisce about your childhood, laugh about the foolish things you did, and remember the people and places that shaped your lives.

But what happens when you’re the only one left who remembers?

There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with being the last surviving member of your childhood family. You can have children, grandchildren, friends, and people who love you dearly, but none of them can take you back to the beginning. None of them were there when your story first began.

And sometimes, that’s what I miss the most.

Not just the people I’ve lost, but the world we shared. A world that exists now only in my memories.

Six years ago, I became the keeper of those memories. The last one left to tell our stories.

And although I carry that responsibility with love, some days, Lord, it is a heavy thing to carry.