My brother Henry died a year ago today.

That point in time is a discontinuity for me. There was my life before, when there seemed to be some kind of stability in the world, at least on a smaller scale. And then there is my life after that, when I found myself in a new position, the last living member of the Paris family.

Henry and I weren’t close in a lot of ways, but there was always a sense of belonging. The nuclear family was long gone, of course. Our father died in 2000, and our mother in 2013. But those are the kinds of deaths that any mature person has to expect. My father’s death made me into a different kind of person, one for whom the words, “My father is dead” had an actual, gut-level meaning. I joined a kind of club then, the club of people who have lost a parent. When I talked to other people who had lost a parent, there was a kind of unspoken understanding between us. My brother and I both looked to our mother then, not as a person to lean on, but as a person who needed someone to lean on. We could both count on the other to be there when necessary.

And then, when our mother died, there was a sense of finality. Now it was just me and my brother … forever? Well, that was in the back of my mind. I knew at some time both of us would die, but I aways thought it would be far in the distant future, and, for some reason, I always assumed I would die first, even though Henry was older by almost three years. I guess it was because I thought Henry was strong, competent and reliable. He would be there because he knew he should be there.

Then there came the call just before Thanksgiving, when he told me that his doctor had found suspicious spots on his liver. It wasn’t long before he found out that it was pancreatic cancer, and that the prognosis was dim at best. Not really dim — black.

I went into a period of, not denial, but intellectual distance. Henry and I were both pretty smart people, and we were both scientists. I went into disinterested scientist mode. Not uninterested, but standing off a little and looking at the situation unemotionally. I took in every little bit of new information and fitted it into my model of how things would go. I knew there was a very high probability of what would happen eventually, but I chose not to conclude anything until all the facts were in.

Maybe most people do what I did but call it something different. Probably denial.

At the end, even when I saw Henry lying in bed, barely conscious, wasting away, I didn’t accept that his death was a foregone conclusion. It was not until his son called and said he had died a day after my last visit to him that the reality hit me.

Only it never did really hit me. For me, it’s a perfect example of cognitive dissonance. A part of me is aware of and comprehends that Henry is dead, and there is another part of me that simply hasn’t acknowledged that. I can still feel his presence in my life. I’m sure that’s a characteristic of the human brain.

I have spent a lot of time over this last year trying to figure out just what the reality is, at least for me. Among other things, the reality is a new awareness of death, the end of things. I never really believed Henry would die. But he did. And I guess that means I will, too.

But I’m not sure that’s what really bothers me. I’m not just sad because Henry is dead, although he had a lot left to live for, and I’m not just depressed because I know I’ll die sometime. I think it’s more about the last link with my family being broken. I spent a lot of years feeling like part of my emotional foundation was my family. Now that’s gone.

We all spend our formative years growing up — that’s a tautology, of course. But in our formative years, we are the younger generation, and our parents are the older generation. Things will be different for us because … well, because we’re young. If you have children, you have to admit that there is another generation coming along behind you, but if you have no children, that realization might not quite occur.

Late last fall, before Henry got so sick he couldn’t walk, his two sons and his new daughter-in-law came to Chattanooga to visit. We decided to take a walk around the block. We all started off together, but the youngsters gradually pulled ahead of me and Henry, as the two of us talked and looked around.

That image, of three 30-somethings walking ahead and the two old guys walking and falling slowly further and further behind, seemed to me a perfect metaphor for life. That’s when I began to see myself and Henry as the last generation, fading away while the next generation takes its place. Only for me, there is no next generation.

I wish I could feel like there is something useful that could come out of the way I feel now, but, at least for the time, I can’t see it.