Connected Loss

I'm not sure it's possible to endure loss without connecting it to previous, seemingly unrelated losses. When my mother died I instantly began to grieve my father's passing fifteen years earlier. As we face my father-in-law's pending departure, I grieve the loss of my mother three years ago.  There's nothing logical about such a practice of association, but it happens nonetheless.  Perhaps this eases back the corner slightly on the mystery of life--we were created for relationship and cannot understand life in isolation. Each is a part of another, even without an associated genealogy.  I think I'm only beginning to gain an elementary understanding of the inherent value of humanity to humanity.