has anyone lost a brother or sister as a child ?

[MerryAnnSinglemas]

Have any others lost their brother or sister when they were a child ? Did you grieve ?
I ask because my brother died when I was 13 and he was 10 - I was reading somewhere the other day about Winston's Wish and the way children can be helped to deal with the death of a parent (also Mummy Diaries which I didn't get to see) - and this has made me think that when my brother died I didn't really deal with it at the time (didn't go to funeral/was desperate to get back to normal/didn't want anyone at school to know).

[Marina]

No, but sending you lots of love, I am so sorry MaryAnn. I think you should contact Winston's Wish. Rather as SANDS can and does help people whose babies died at a time when the loss of a child was a social taboo, so they might be able to point you in the right direction to explore your feelings.
Dh lost his dad when he was six and his sister three and the bereavement was handly very badly indeed imo, leaving a lifetime's scars and vulnerability .
How awful for you.

[mamazon]

my sister died as a newborn.
i was 16 but i had younger siblings.

myself and my brother were asked if we wanted to attend teh funeral, which we did. but my younger siblings were not allowed as my parents felt it was not appropriate.

i have been involved with Winstons wish witjh a family i used to work with and they were amazing.
i think its very hard for chidlren who lose siblings as people tend to overlook their grief far more so than tehy would if it were a parent that had died.

do you feel you would like to work through your feelings of grief now youa re an adult?

[ChristmasShinySnowflakes]

I lost my baby brother when I was 10

[camicazi]

I haven't experienced this myself, and can't even imagine the sort of pain it must leave you with. My own experience is more 'common'; my dad died when I was 9. He will have been dead for 26 years in a couple of weeks time, and I certainly went straight back to school, didn't go to the funeral and was asked not to cry as it would upset my mum. It's been on my mind as DS1 (9) is now pretty much exactly the age I was when it happened (DS's birthday is the day after mine) and I hope he would have more support if, God forbid, the same thing happened to him. Does looking at your own children make you think how vunerable you were then? Would you consider counselling now?

[Scotia]

My brother was killed in an accident when he was 10 and I was 13. The whole family is affected by it even now, 28 years later. I have never really come to terms with it, and it's so hard to talk about him. My uncle told me (trying to help, but probably did more harm than good) to hide my feelings from my parents because it would make things worse for them to see me upset.

A friend asked me recently whether I had any siblings, so i told her about my brother, and it has made things very awkward between us since then. She just doesn't know how to deal with it I suppose, but it makes you wary of opening up to anyone.

[MerryAnnSinglemas]

ChristmasShinySnowflakes for you - and mamazon - and thank you Marina for your kind thoughts - trouble is this was so long ago now - I'm well into my forties - but I do think of his particularly now as ds is the same age ( in fact I did feel anxiety about ds reaching 10 and being ok). My brother died of a rare childhood cancer (of his kidney0 - don't know what it was called - he was ill for a relatively short time and was nursed at home, so we,my younger brother,then aged 6, knew he was very ill but never actually asked any questions - like, is he going to get better ? Will he die ?? - probably too scared to really want to know. No one said anything to us, so we carried on as normal which is probably what our parents thought was best for all of us.

[MerryAnnSinglemas]

Scotia - I didn't tell my best friend when I was at art school about my db for ages as I was afraid /embarrassed at how she might react - which is ridiculous - I had to write it on a piece of paper for goodness sake - of course she was great, but I thinbk I had a fear of being thought of as different when it happened and it stuck with me. Sometimes I'd just say I had 1 brother when asked and this makes me feel so bad about denying the middle brother - I always now say,I had 2 brothers,one died...
(got to get ds from school now - back later !)

[Marina]

I think it is quite normal to have your feelings blown wide open again by becoming a parent yourself

Dh coped fine in his own way with the loss of his dad until

1. we had a prematurely stillborn son when ds1 was three
   
   
2. ds got to six and was therefore the same age as dh was when his father died
   
   I wonder if your brother had Wilms Tumour MaryAnn.
   
   Can I ask if you have a parent around you feel you can talk to about this (I know if I were in your position the answers to those questions would be yes, but no)

[Scotia]

Yes, i understand that. We moved away three weeks after my brother was killed, so no-one there knew us. When I started school after the summer holidays (day after we moved, so still very raw), the first thing all the new teachers asked me - in front of the whole class - was "have you any brothers or sisters?" I just used to say no, and I feel awful about that, even now.

[MerryAnnSinglemas]

thanks Marina - have asked my mum about db's illness but she couldn't remember what it was called...we do talk about him, but it seems to be something we don't really talk about - I know my dad would find it hard to really go into it.
The thing that strikes me now is that I wonder whether it has some imput intoi my OCD,which I've had for many years - since late teens/twenties - I was thinking that a lot of it is related to feelings of security and safety and responsibility for others and if I'm being analytical,then I think that maybe I didn't trust my parents to keep us safe, so compensated for it by checking etc. Have had loads of talking therapy over the years and have spoken endlessly about db, but as you say camicazi - having a child who is same age as db was kind of brings it home.

[manitz]

hi my sister was knocked over by a car when I was 13 and she was 7. she suffered massive brain damage but lived for a further 10 months. 3 in a coma and then at home for 6 or so. This was 21 years ago. I was terrible for about 12 or so years then I rang cruse who just ecplained how teens deal with death which really helped. I recently had a late termination of pg as the baby had a really bad heart and I felt for the first time lucky that I had dealt with geri's death as it prepared me for the grief. have got very obsessed since losing my baby about mine and my kids health. have told everyone about my sis though less so now I'm older and tend not to do so on introduction any more!

[ChristmasShinySnowflakes]

I remember vividly when my brother died.

Remember being told, the funeral, seeing the tiny white coffin and most of all my Mum sitting, rocking and sobbing as far into the corner of our living room as she could squeeze herself and my Dad looking like he would never smile again.

[MerryAnnSinglemas]

I think that if I'd gone to his funeral and seen the coffin then it m ight have helped, but as it was he died in the night and I was sent to school as usual and told by my dad who came to collect me from the bus stop - I can remember exactly what he said and where we were on the road on the way home.
When we got home of course he wasn't there anymore - his bed was stripped,though I couldn't bring myself to look in his room for a while.
Thank you to everyone so far who has shared these thoughts on this thread - do appreciate it.

[Verso]

Only just seen this thread. Yes - my sister died of an undiagnosed brain tumour when I was 14 (she was 19 and it was completely unexpected). Looking back, I didn't really grieve at the time - it's difficult when your peers are so young that they expect you to get back to normal instantly. I remember girls at school being bitchy about me being 'moody' .

She died on 19 December so Christmas is always an awful time for me - that bloody song "so here it is, Merry Christmas!" was playing in the taxi on the way back from the hospital after they turned the machines off after the operation so I just love hearing that every year

Sorry - this is probably not much help, except to say that I think it wouldn't be that unusual to have 'buried' your grief in some way in order to get through it at the time, particularly as you were young when it happened. I've heard Cruse are very good but haven't dared go as I sometimes feel I 'ought' to be over it by now (23 years ago FGS!)

[manitz]

hi i wouldn't have gone to cruse and didn't go for same reasons as verso. You can just ring i foudn that was enough. My prob was that my life was crap particularly relationships and everytime somethign went wrong I wld blame it on that. also when I got drunk I'd go on and on about it, v annoying and clearly no closure.

I was watchign top of the pops and 'going on up to the spirit in the sky' was on when I heard the car crash into her. NHever told anyone that b4 - even when drunk.

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

Oh Manitz, the things we remember

[ShakeysGirl]

I lost a brother when i was 5. I can remember being at my nans with my sister who was 3. We were listening at the top of the stairs when my mum called my nan, we were supposed to be in bed. I don't really remember what was said and have no real memories about it after that really. Its all a bit foggy in my mind.

[Greensleeves]

I lost a foster brother (not that he was anything but a brother as far as I was concerned) when I was 7-ish and he was 2. He had been ill and likely not to live long anyway (which I didn't know at the time - we knew he was profoundly disabled, but not that he was likely to die).

He died whilst my sister and brother and I were on holday with our dad (our parents were divorced) and he was with my mother and stepfather. By the time we came home from holiday the funeral was done and dusted, our schools had been told, his stuff had all gone etc. It was pretty devastating. He just disappeared from our lives. I now know that my mother and stepfather weren't given much choice about funeral arrangements etc, as he wasn't yet legally theirs - I can only imagine how harrowing the whole process must have been for them. They were basically invited to their own child's funeral, as it felt to them.

I do feel a bit resentful that they decided to take on a child with that level of disability and that prognosis, when they already had three children who had been through a divorce, several house/school moves, their father moving to the Middle East, and who were quite obviously suffering from a range of emotional problems (nervous cough, bedwetting, nightmares, poor behaviour at school, that sort of thing). Particularly as they went on very quickly to adopt another child with entirely different severe special needs which placed huge stress on the whole family.

I did feel very much at the time as though any grief I might feel was pushed aside, and that expressing it would be regarded as a kind of vulgar unforgiveable attention-seeking in the face of my mother's "real" loss and grief. Whether she intended it or not, that's how it felt. I've only recently started revisiting all that myself - I had nightmares about his for years afterwards and even concocted a really bizarre explanation for why it was my fault he died.

Sorry, I've rambled. I hope it helps for others to share their experiences.

[Scotia]

Fio, I agree that the sibling you have lost stays a child in your mind forever. My brother's friend lives near me and it was agony at first (I recently moved back to where we lived when I was a child) when I saw him as an adult with a family - something my brother will obviously never have.

[shabster]

I had twin boys at the end of 1981 and very sadly one of the twins died at 7 months due to congenital heart problems. We went on to have another boy in 1984. He was killed when a lorry reversed over him in 1992. My 'survivor' is Danny - he's now 26. Not sure if I could get him to come on the site but I am sure I could answer any questions for him - we have talked for hundreds and hundreds of hours about bereavement. Would be glad to help anyone in this awful predicamentxxxx

[Scotia]

Greensleeves, yes again, it's very common to think itwas somehow your fault your siblind died. I blamed myself for a long time for not being the one on his bike that day. I also thought my mum and dad would have preferred it to have been me, but again not rational really.

[Scotia]

x-post shabster - I'm so sorry about your sons. I don't believe anything could compare to losing your child.

[bundle]

here's a really thought-provoking article about the aftermath of losing a sibling - and the way family try to protect those left behind.

[Greensleeves]

shabster, I can't imagine how that must feel. How terribly cruel life can be.