Dear Sibling, The One Left Behind #2

It's not easy, writing about our loss, it is even harder to share that with so many. We write because in the long run, it helps to get it out of our soul and into the world, a short time of relief. We do not write to tell everyone this is what they will go through, this is what will happen or is happening to them. What we are saying is, this happened to me, or someone I know, did it happen to you? Life/death, it happens to us all different, yet we can find it is the same in some instances. I read a lot of peoples writings as they negotiated through their grief. In their writings, I have found things that help me and see things that help others to understand what we are going through. Even now, 20 months later, I am still going through many things. It is my journey, my loss, my perception of what is going on around me. I never mean't for others to think that I am telling them that this is how it is for all of us. For some it is, for others it is not. I cannot stress enough that what I write should not be taken as something others can expect to happen to them. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Grief is the umbrella, what happens under that umbrella is personal, different for everyone even when we find similar in others sorrow.

It made me sad when what I wrote about siblings was taken offense to. I was not writing that all siblings go through or do the things I wrote about. I wrote that for the parents and siblings that shared their feelings with me. Many knew exactly what I was saying and I appreciate that so much. The two who took offense? At first, it angered me that they would attack my family. After saying some not nice things myself and deleting them I had to sit back and think on this instead of reacting. I do not know them or their stories so the only conclusion I could draw was that it hit a nerve deep inside. For that, I am sorry. Sometimes we hide the truth, even from ourselves until someone accidentally uncovers the reality. A parents instinct is to protect their living children, many times they will do that by keeping their worst sorrow from them. In turn, the siblings will assume their parents are healing. We do that so our children can get on with their lives. Don't be angry because your parents wanted to protect you from their pain. They did it out of love.

A lot of siblings shared with me their feelings at the loss of their brother/sister. Parents shared how the child left behind closed off their feelings, did not want to talk about the loss, did not want to hear their siblings name. How they felt guilt over their siblings death and wondered if it should of been them instead. A sibling goes through a different kind of sorrow, just as deep and complex, but different from the parent. Because we all grieve different. Parents just want the child left behind to know that they love them, that they are the most important people in their lives. They want them to know that all the parent needs is time in the beginning, time to learn to live without the one they lost. They do not love their children less, if anything they love them more, paralyzed with fear that they will lose them too. Parents feel a false sense of guilt at the loss of a child, so do most siblings. They are such scrambled, hard to explain emotions that we all are trying to deal with. And still, I am not saying this applies to everyone. Only you know where you stand inside, how you feel as a sibling.

When I said my daughter did not understand my pain, maybe I phrased that wrong, or did not adequately explain it. She understands that my pain is different than her own. She does not know what the pain of child loss is. If you have never experienced it, you will not know it. Fact. She understands this, agrees with this. She is my first born, my life. As I grieve for my son, she grieves for her brother. Her pain is just as real and deep as mine. Her loss of her brother is just as important. How she deals with this, how she moves on is up to her. We have each others shoulders and love and understanding.

To the two ladies I seem to have offended? I am sorry for your loss. I get it that you do not understand what I wrote for you did not go through that. I envy and applaud your parents that they were able to keep you from the deepest of their sorrow, it is what parents hope to do. Please understand though, that a lot of people go through a lot of things, if you haven't, be kind to them anyway. To belittle anyone who is hurting is not a compliment to you. Better to say nothing at all then to be cruel. As for me, I need to work on not reacting to people who may say cruel things, but probably didn't mean to. 'Forever Mom.'