Grief, 28 years on

[youvegottobekidding]

Today, 28 years ago my brother was killed in a RTA.

Every 1st Nov, I feel a dreaded darkness, how I wish I could go back in time & somehow prevent his death. I still remember clearly the police knocking on the door, telling me and my sister that our brother had died in an accident. My dad wasn’t in, he was taking my other sister, her husband & their baby home, then picking my mother up from work on the way back.

I remember waiting from them to return, it was the longest wait. Seeing them come walk down the drive, close to collapse. I was 18 at the time, my brother was 25.

The last time I saw him alive was the night before. He had come home from work in the pouring rain & looked like a drowned rat it was funny. My dad was the last person to see him alive, the following morning as he set off to work.

Looking back, yes, I lost my parents in a way, they were so consumed with their grief, a grief I never really understood, until I became a mother myself. I was only 18 & I lost my brother, no one really asked me if I was ok. And It’s only recently I have realised that.

The pain, the sadness it never leaves. As the days turned to weeks, weeks into months, months into years, it does get easier to live with. You laugh again, you love again, you cry, you smile, the world doesn’t stop. When I had my two kids i have my brother’s name as their middle name & they (they are a bit older now) know all about their uncle. He would have adored & cherished them with all his heart, it’s a real shame he isn’t here to see them.

Hi youvegotobe kidding.

Sending you a hug at this time.

My thoughts are with you xx

Sending you lots of love.

A friend of mine wants to begin a charity for sibling loss, as she felt it isn’t something spoken about as much. Perhaps you would like to be involved if it goes ahead? I’d be happy to put you in touch as and when.

Grief is a very tough and isolating journey. No one in the world knows what you, personally, have lost. It’s so hard.

Lots of love for today 💜

Thank you for sharing and take time for your grief at your losses. RIP.

I so strongly believe that grief lies particularly heavily in the anniversaries of loss. It links to the weather, the cycle of the year and the levels of light. It makes you relive the pain year after year, bringing it back to the surface like the spikes of the leaf of a snowdrop. There isn’t an answer; where we loved the one we lost, it feels like grief has to be felt and heard forever really. Without the sharpness of grief, maybe we lose the person we loved entirely.

I hope, over years, it becomes a gentler thing for you.

I am so sorry for your loss.

Do you want to tell us about your lovely brother? What was he like?

Almost 22 years for me and I was 16 at the time. I completely understand OP.
Sibling grief by P.Gill White really helped me understand some of what I was feeling. She references how sibling grief is generally ‘forgotten’ with the focus being on parents. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve told about my siblings death only for the first response to be ‘oh my god your poor parents.’
This was posted on a thread not long ago and I have saved it as it made so much sense to me
Tonkin's model of grief:

Imagine drawing a circle to represent yourself. This is you, your life and everything you’re experiencing. Now you shade in the circle to represent your grief.
The result is a circle, almost entirely shaded. This is you and your grief; it may be entirely consuming your life. You may feel unable to eat or sleep, or find yourself struggling to think about anything else.
What happens in the following days, months and years is important. Rather than the shaded area growing smaller, the outer circle (representing you) begins to grow bigger. The result looks somewhat like a fried egg, with the white representing your life and the yolk representing your grief – this is why this model of grief is sometimes referred to as the fried egg model.
Tonkin’s theory of grief suggests that over time, your grief will stay much the same, but your life will begin to grow around it. You will have new experiences, meet new people, and begin to find moments of enjoyment. Slowly, these moments may grow more frequent and the outer circle will grow a little bigger.
Eventually, there will be a much larger circle, with the same size shaded area – but the grief is not as dominant overall. This is why Tonkin’s model of grief is called growing around grief.
This does not mean the grief disappears. It will probably always be there, and may even grow a little bigger at difficult times. But it no longer completely dominates the circle.
look after yourself

So much love to you OP it can leave a lasting impact when nobody acknowledges your grief at the time. I hope you continue to heal.

Thank you everyone for your messages of support, they mean so much on this difficult day.

My brother & I, we’ll we fought quite a bit, actually, the five of us (yes there was 5 of us, I don’t know how my parents managed!) used to have quite some squabbles when we were younger. But I look upon our ‘fights’ with humour. He loved his motorbike and his nephew, he was a fab uncle & would have made a great dad, he had wonderful, natural way with babies and kids. He had a great sense of humour too. As we were waiting outside the church in our funeral cars, the vicar tripped over a stone, he didn’t fall, just lost his footing a bit & my older brother laughed out & said that our brother probably put that stone there & we laughed through our tears.

My dad and him played snooker a lot in the house. The game started off relatively friendly, then got quite competitive & would always end up in an argument each calling each other a cheat, yet the’d still play the next day! My dad never played again after my brother died. I had never seen my dad cry before. It was like someone had taken the light inside from him. My parents were & never have been the same since. I lost my brother, they lost their son. So they were thinking about the day he was born, the nappies they changed, his first steps, his first day at school, his smiles, the tears he cried, when he made them cry, when he made them laugh, when he made them proud, they were thinking of his life with them. And they still do to this very day, 28 years later. I am not alone in my grief. It’s just life seems so unfair at times.

for you, and anyone else remembering loved ones at this time of year

My DSis died 34 years ago when I was 24. My parents lost a little bit of the light inside them after that. My other DSis and I are SO close. It's as if, because we know the loss, we can never take each other for granted. She has been my rock in recent months.

What a moving post OP. I’m so sorry about the loss of your brother.

Hey :).

My thoughts are with you, and I am very sorry for what you are going through.

I am not in the same situation as you, however something happened to me at the end of October 5 years ago, and now the change in weather (which I think is the most significant of all annual changes at this time of year) brings on anxiety and depression because it always just reminds me of what happened.

So while I cannot know exactly what you are going through, I can certainly sympathise with it hitting you year on year.

Hugs.

I’m sat here with tears in my eyes reading this thread
My youngest brother died 31 years ago on the 30th October. He died in a car accident when he was 17. It was a hard day as I had just found out I was pregnant with my first child. My son has my brothers name as his middle name
My parents suffered really badly, my dad has had ill health ever since and my mum died age 51 as she never really recovered from it
Normally I get anxious around the lead up to his anniversary and it was years before I could celebrate Halloween but this year I had not remembered and it was Facebook that reminded me
I should feel guilty about that but I don’t. The pain and the grief is still there but I’ve just learned to live with it. It’s not that time heals, nothing can heal the pain but I have accepted it, just like KMoKMo says

Thank you for posting youvegottobekidding

@insancerre the circumstances of losing your brother when pregnant and losing your mum so long must be so hard.

Bit outing but both my girls have my sister’s name as their middle names. I think it’s lovely so many do this and for me no other name would have been right (despite what you think MIL). I think it’s a lovely way to remember lost siblings.

I'm so sorry you lost your brother, OP .

One of my brothers died (also tragic, but different circumstances) five years ago, and it's only dawning on me now that it's always going to be painful. It's hard coming to terms with that. I just want it to be better.

I’m sorry for your losses also .

FatArse123, five years isn’t really anything, a year, ten years, 20 years, no matter how many years pass, the void will remain. You are allowed to grieve though and you are allowed to laugh and carry on with life too. The pain doesn’t get better or go away, it just gets a bit easier to live with, if that makes any sense?

Insancerre, I’m sorry for your loss, losing your brother & then your mother is just heartbreaking

SunshineAngel