The Family Impact
“Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus and we have to believe that some of those tears were for Mary and Martha, Lazarus’s sisters, because Jesus knows the weight and the cross of grief.” - Franchelle Jaeger
“Our brother experienced his own death only once, but we have been through it more than 1000 times. If you have lost a brother or sister, you know the weight of grief. You think about it all the time … You know the stealth of the pain. You know how often it comes and the toll it takes. You know the effects of going through what you think is a normal day and then a ‘ninja attack’ of grief hits you and a normal day turns into sadness, loneliness, and lonesomeness … Our hearts are always wounded and always healing. And the cycle never stops.”
Franchelle Jaeger, sister to Jarod who died at age 22
Intersecting Pain Pathways in a Grieving Family
Siblings of grief share with their parents the sense of the world being off. Losing a sibling or a child is a loss that is out of the natural order. It is a life-changing experience. The order is never really restored, but a family can learn to live and move in the world in new and different ways. A family’s life becomes about finding the detours in their new landscape of grief so they don’t hit the potholes of grief so much. In time we may start to learn the road map of grief, but we never get to take those normal routes again without knowing that grief is going to meet us along the way.
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Losing a sibling means we have lost someone who shared most of the formative parts of our lives. They know our stories from childhood because they are theirs too. They know the jokes because they were there. They are our inner circle given to us by God. Siblings are often your first friends, with similar goals, similar interests, similar enemies, the same parents. The most constant friendship in your life. Perhaps the largest investment of your time for your formative years. The death of one person in a group affects all the survivors. If you are a sibling of grief, take some time to assess this new normal of disorder. Sit with what that means for you.
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If you are a child of grieving parents, you are the closest barometer to your parents’ grief. You know the depth of your own grief. Most likely, their grief is deeper than that. You can make up the margin of that difference with grace and love for your parents and mourn with them – not apart from them.
The grief you are experiencing is real and valuable. Your tears are precious and deserve attention. The loss of a brother or sister is immense. Most often, well-wishers focus on the parents who have experienced a traumatic, seismic loss. But the living siblings, especially those still at home, are most affected by their parents’ pain and trauma. This is compounded pain for children who are already grieving their sibling.
It is common for surviving siblings to feel:
“I think my parents must have loved him more than me.”
“My parents don’t see me anymore.”
As a surviving sibling, you may start to question your own worth in the family. You see your parents as graveside caretakers, and while we should never begrudge parents their need for this, siblings are keenly aware of their shroud of grief and that the shroud covers even other children for a while.
Siblings of grief, this is common. It is real. You are not imagining things. Children of grieving parents, I want you to know that your parents still love you and need you. In time, the shroud of grief will slip down and they will see you again. Stay close and be prayerfully persistent in your relationship with your parents and with your other siblings, if you have them.
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Parents grieving the loss of a child, I want you to know that your children are living in pain alongside you. The grief is so heavy and your children are carrying a weight of pain similar to yours, and they are carrying a part of yours as well.
If you are a parent who has lost a child and you have living children, give those children grace in recalibrating their grief. It must be devastating to see through the fog of your grief, but when you can, turn on the low beams so that you can see the other children who are still here because they need you.
Parents, do not ignore the loss for your living children as well. They have lost a sibling, but they have also lost a part of you and a part of every other sibling they have. Help them however you can with the resources available to you. Help each other.
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Siblings feel the real shift in the plate tectonics of their family life. They feel even subtle movements of their parents’ mental, physical, and spiritual health. They notice the toll that grief is taking on their parents. They notice that this pain manifests in a variety of ways. Parents may isolate themselves. They may pull away. They may even lash out at surviving children. Often parents are doing their best to seem okay in the world and in their circles of friends or coworkers, but the children at home have special glasses for their parents and they see so clearly those things that other people simply can’t. Often that pain is inadvertently poured into the living children and siblings need to be aware and take stock of that and the toll it is taking in their lives as well.
The loss of a sibling changes everything. It changes holidays. Family texts. The very fabric of the family. Nothing is the same.
The loss of a sibling does not mean the remaining siblings have more of each other. Instead, they have less. They have lost the chance to react together to the lost sibling’s jokes or comments or warmth. They have lost the opportunity to introduce future spouses or children to the brilliance of this person who is gone. All they can do is describe the memories. They have lost the opportunity to be whole around the table with their parents.
These losses are real and they compound grief. They have lost a sibling, but also a part of every single person in their family. Siblings, do not ignore this part of grief. Children, your parents are not just mourning the death of one child. They are also mourning, although they might not realize it, what they have lost of you in the death of your sibling.