It’s a rough thing, losing your parents.
Lots going on.

Emails. Texts. Phone calls.
Siblings asking why.
Discussions of the will.
Memories, good and bad. Often simultaneous.
Tears of grief mixed with joy that the suffering is over.
Childhood home drive-bys, someone else’s family there now.
Old recipes since changed, but still reminiscent.
Mannerisms inadvertently inherited, stirring recollection.
Learning to be alone in the world.
Jumping at the doorbell, thinking for a second it might be them.
Going to work, no one knows.

All that, plus the fact they’re not actually dead.

Only dead to me.