Rearranging the Family Puzzle Pieces

(Douglas and his sister, Sarah, before prom.)

When one loses a sibling it is the strangest and loneliest feeling that I can describe. A part of a shared history, the one who knew you when no longer exists. Resulting in an earth shattering and jarring jolt to those left behind having to pick up the scattered shards to a puzzle that no longer fits nor are you sure you ever want it to.

My brother, Eric, or Rick, as he was known to us was injected with blood tainted with hep C in the mid 90’s before the FDA was doing proper testing. He was one of two hundred people both in Canada and the United States who were infused and this was before the pills one can take now to save their lives were available. He fought valiantly for three years taking interferon and finally received a liver transplant, living for only three weeks after his surgery before sepsis invaded his body.

My sister, Carol, and I grappled with our new found places in this family of ours and never could either of us move into that first born position of my brother’s. Our rock, the funniest and most glorious human was no longer our guide and to this day, almost twenty-six years later I often wonder what life would have been life had he remained earth side?

I watched life for my mom come to a grinding, heart wrenching halt. The one whom she had longed and waited to arrive for five years, a temperature baby they called them then, was no longer in her life in the ways she had always imagined he would be.

At that time I had not known child loss yet and I said all the wrong things one says when you’re terrified that you are losing your parents as well. This was an amends I was able to make once I did know and her response was, “Oh, I never wanted Carol nor you to ever have to walk this path and you could never have known.”

She lived for sixteen months longer after the loss of my son to companion and show me the way through. Speaking to me often without words, yet in a heart language that my aching and broken heart found recognition in. I thirsted and rested in her presence and comfort because she didn't have answers, simply a vastness which could hold all I laid at her mother's feet.

I watched our daughter, Sarah, just twenty-one months younger than her brother handed an only child role, one that she never chose nor imagined. Her partner in crime was no longer present, the one she could talk trash to about her parents when we are driving her crazy, the uncle to her children, the one who had known her the longest along with her parents.

About a year ago she told me that she felt as if a part of me had died and changed forever with the loss of her brother, Douglas. I agreed and said it had and that there was no way around it, just living into it daily. Trying to not deify her brother nor make her feel invisible, which are two very common threads that can happen with child loss and the surviving siblings. Muddling through as best as I’m able and being intentional and honest as to how it’s landing for me.

All I know is that sibling loss is immensely painful and there was really nothing I could do for her in those early days, weeks and months. It was all I could manage to keep myself breathing and the one thing that we did right was that we continued to speak of Douglas in the present tense and included him. It mattered not if she couldn’t utter a word, simply hearing us I sense gave her permission that when she chose to we would welcome it. Even if it was met with a tear, a chuckle, silence, it was all as it needed to be.

Having lost my own brother offered me a front row seat into what it might be feeling like for my daughter, yet never would I tell her that I knew how she was feeling because how could I? The loss of her only sibling belongs to her, her loss, her grief and her healing.

Finding others who share sibling loss is a key in the lock for many and not fearing parent fragility. Saying the thing, whatever the thing may be and feeling safe and secure to know that it will be heard and acknowledged. No expectations other than a mutual sharing of a depth of loss that is begging to find some kind of expression.