The New Normal: life after a sibling dies

[LarryD2]

Posted: 6/29/15 at 9:36am

I just came across this essay by Stephanie Wittels, the sister of the comic and writer Harris Wittels, who died of a drug overdose in February at the age of 30. A friend of mine -- who lost her sister to a drug overdose a few years ago -- shared it on Facebook, and it's one of the most honest, gut-wrenching examinations of grief and loss I've ever read. I know several people who've been touched by this kind of loss, and sometimes I honestly cannot fathom how they make it through the day. I had to share it. It's worth your time.

The New Normal

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 6/29/15 at 10:17am

My younger brother died 3 years ago, in August. He was 32. My wife's brother died six months later. He was 38. Each was our only sibling. It's been a special kind of hell.

 

[xxdrewboy85xx]

Posted: 6/29/15 at 11:57am

A friend of mine who lost her cousin to addiction posted this last week and as I was reading it, I just broke down. By the end, when quoting the lyrics to "You Are My Sunshine" I was crying hysterical, ugly tears.

 

Such a beautifully written piece. So heartbreaking, yet beautifully said. I honestly haven't had to experience the death of someone who was really close to me, except for losing two of my grand parents who passed away at an old age who lived long, happy lives. 

 

I can't imagine the heartache and pain of losing a sibling/close friend at such a young age, and dealing with their demons and addiction. But I can empathize with those who have, and this letter definitely helped me to understand the pain and loss  that so many deal with.  

 

Jersey Girl, I am sorry for your loss and thank you for sharing. I can't begin to imagine the pain I would feel if I lost my sister. 

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 6/29/15 at 5:49pm

There's just a void. Especially when you only have the one sibling, they are literally the only person in existence that really gets where you come from. They usually experienced life in the same place, with the same people, around the same time, from the same perspective you did. My brother and I would look at each other across the table at Christmas dinner, without saying a word, and be thinking the exact same thing. We had a list of stupid things that happened at every holiday dinner. My grandmother would cover the long (temporary) table with wrapping paper, because she never had a table cloth long enough. Every year she would comment on the fancy table cloth. When she did it the first Christmas after my brother died, I broke down. No one else got it. He would have. There are just so many little things like that.

He never got to meet my daughter, as my wife was only 6 weeks pregnant when he died. My mom told him that we were expecting, so he called me. He was so excited. After we hung up, he called back about 10 minutes later. He said, "Man! I didn't even ask you who was pregnant!" It meant the WORLD to me. To him, it didn't matter about the biological connection. I was going to have a kid and he was thrilled. Considering how difficult some of this has been with my family, that last conversation with him is something I will always treasure.

[LarryD2]

Posted: 6/29/15 at 6:48pm

That was really beautiful to read, JG2. Thank you so much for sharing. I don't have siblings, so I've never been personally privy to that kind of shared bond. I can only imagine how you feel. Like Stephanie says in her essay, you think you have decades ahead in your relationship, and then one day it's gone. 

[Jane2]

Posted: 6/29/15 at 6:53pm

Updated On: 6/29/15 at 06:53 PM

[South Florida]

Posted: 6/29/15 at 8:05pm

(Jersey Girl)

[Taryn]

Posted: 6/30/15 at 12:15am

God. That just -- that killed me.

My brother committed suicide in 2012, and so much of that article was me. I didn't have to deal with the business of his death, with the forms and the calls and all of those. But so much of that was me. I remember my parents screaming. Literally screaming. I'd never heard people cry like that before. I had never cried like that before. And I remember not caring about so much. You think you've run out of ****s after a particularly ****ty day, but man, you live in negative five million ****s when your brother dies. I could give a **** about being nice. I didn't care about personal hygiene. It was so hard for me to grieve with my family because the combination of our grief was so terrifying and overwhelming, that I watched my mother clutching my brother's shoes -- the ones he died in, the ones they brought over after his body was taken -- screaming and sobbing and I had to stand there watching for minutes before I was able to find the ability to walk over and hold her. I didn't want to. I didn't want to hold anybody else.

I have three brothers -- had three brothers -- but he was my favorite. He was brilliant in a very literal sense, and he was so funny. Of everyone in the family, he would always pick up when I called, or call me back if I left a message. A few months after he died, that fall, Marvel announced they were doing a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and it was amazing because I loved those comics so much that hardly anyone read, and it was ridiculous they were making a movie, but then it was so incredibly awful, because he gave me those comics. I loved those comics because he loved them and because he mailed them to me in a box with a handwritten piece of paper giving me a reading order and personal notes about the comics.

I can remember so clearly what she writes about with no response being correct. I wanted everyone to ask me about him. No one wanted to. I wanted to tell strangers about him, because it seemed incomprehensible to me that there were people in the world who didn't understand how much his death meant. How devastating it was.

My father lost friends. I don't even know how you do this to a person, but there were people who just couldn't deal -- THEY couldn't deal -- and so their response was to just disappear from his life. Others from his past reappeared and reconnected, which meant the world to him, but it hardly healed this secondary wound. His son died, and he had friends who literally abandoned him.

Last year, I saw Big Hero 6. It was great. Honestly, it was a great movie, but I spent so much of it sobbing. My good friends who had recommended it to me hadn't stopped to think to warn me that so much of the movie is centered on losing a sibling. I found after his death that it wasn't the things I expected that really broke me -- I actually don't find anniversaries difficult, I think because my mind is so ready for it -- but the things that come out of the blue. Guardians of the Galaxy. Big Hero 6. Random stupid things that I can't prepare for because I don't know they're coming.

And like Stephanie in this article, it happened right on my birthday. For me, it was the morning after. I've managed to retain the joy of my birthday, mostly through stubbornness and a refusal to let his idiocy ruin it. Like I said, the anniversaries aren't as hard for me. It's the moments in between.

This article really gets everything right.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 6/30/15 at 8:47pm

My only brother died 22 years ago of AIDS. They say "time heals everything", but even now I'm not sure I can read Stephanie's essay.

I was six when my brother was born and--thanks to the general indifference of our parents when it came to parenting--they moved him into my room when he was a few weeks old. (Much to my delight, BTW; I'm not complaining, but later in life it struck me as odd that the care of a newborn was entrusted to a six-year-old.)

Shortly before my brother died, I was helping him shower and he said to me with a smile, "I started out in life with you wiping my ass and now here you are doing it again. We've come full circle."

He was so thin and so ill, I could only admire his humor in the face of diversity. I keep thinking that someday I'll be able to laugh with him.

 

[pippin423]

Posted: 6/30/15 at 11:37pm

These posts are really moving and come from the heart. I have two brothers and I could never imagine life without them. They are my best friends besides being brothers. Being that I am the eldest, I want to go first. Couldn't ever be happy without them. They say losing a sibling is like losing an arm or a leg. You are never whole again.