Apologies for the lapse in posts this past week. I was called away to cope with family matters due to the unexpected death of my father.

If you’ve lost a parent, you know: There’s a period of time involved in the grieving process where you find yourself feeling very much alone no matter how much others may try to console you.

It caused me to wonder…

How many household-name celebrities out there have had to cope with the same kind of loss with a parent in their own lives?

It turns out, more than most of us even know about.

The short list includes:

• Charlize Theron - When she was 15, her father attacked her mother, and her mother shot her father in self-defense. Her father died, and her mother was not charged in the incident. Charlize

• Madonna - Madonna’s mother died of breast cancer at the age of thirty on December 1, 1963; Madonna was five years old. Madonna

• Anne Heche - When she was 13 years old, her father died from AIDS Anne

• Dylan McDermott - Even though he was just 5 when his mother died, actor Dylan McDermott has very clear memories of her. Dylan

• Sean Puffy Combs - When Sean was a baby, his father was murdered. Puffy

• John Goodman - When he was two, his father was a mailman who died of a heart attack at age 36. John

• Lee Majors - His father was killed in a work accident a month before he was born, and his mother died in a car accident when he was a toddler. Lee

• Julia Roberts - Her parents divorced when she was five, and her mother remarried. Her father died of cancer when Roberts was nine. Julia

• Cate Blanchett - Lost her father to a heart attack when she was ten years old. Cate

I purposely left off this list all of the very famous celebs who’ve lost a parent like Lisa Marie Presley, Julian and Sean Lennon, Princes William and Harry, Caroline Kennedy and Princess Stephanie of Monaco.

The one celeb’s family history when it came to dealing with death in my search that I found especially tragic was:

Bono - When Bono was 14, his world was turned upside down as his mother collapsed at her father’s funeral and died a few days later of a brain hemorrhage. Bono

Almost sounds like a bad movie, doesn’t it? And we think our lives are filled with drama. I can’t think of a single person who can hold a candle to that.