For Jonny, and all our darling departed sisters and brothers..."their diminished size is in us, not in them".

[evansmummy]

I have remarked over the last few months that there are a number of us on this forum who are living through the death of our brothers and sisters. I would even go so far as to say I never even imagined there could be so many!

I have also noticed that the thread for bereaved mummies is the most amazing place of support, a great place to go and say how you feel without being judged, and knowing that others are going through something similar. And of course a place to go and get a good old MN hug.

So I wondered if those of you who have lost siblings would like to join me in making a place where we can say how we are feeling and to be here for each other, and even to gripe and moan! If you are interested, just let us know a bit about your sibling and a bit about your grief journey if you like. I'll start!

My youngest brother Jonny died a little over five months ago as a result of head injuries sustained during a hit and run accident. My family spent a week in intensive care with him in a coma before he died of heart failure on Fri 30th May 2008. Horrible, just horrible.

I feel down most of the time. But will admit to the strangest mood swings, from very depressed to almost hyper-excited. I still drink and smoke a lot, but less than right at the beginning. Suffice to say that things are not getting easier or better. Maybe even the opposite. I'm dreading Christmas, Jonny's birthday, and then the inquest and court case. I hate it all so much and wish often that it would just all go away. I still can't believe I'm writing this tuff about my own brother.

It's hard to quickly put into a short paragraph the pain and turmoil of the last five months. But I'm sure if this thread works out we'll have plenty of time to go into more detail.

Over to you...

Love Me xx

I've not been here for a while, but please know that I think of all of you.

It's strange about dreams. Sometimes I dream that my brother R is back, and in my dreams I know he's dead but I just enjoy (in the dreams) the fact that he's there. (I say things like 'Oh, you're here!')

But, although they are comforting, these dreams are few and far between.

I know that Christmas/New Year must have been such a hard time for all of you, but I hope, I really do hope, that having kids and/or other family with you has helped.

Mitty - as everyone else has said, you are 'welcome' here, tho' we wish you didn't need to be here.

I do think of you all. And I know it is bloody hard. But please believe me when I say: it does, inch by inch, get a little easier. Because you have to get on with your life.

It does not feel like it right now, though - I know that. But, it will - eventually.

And that does not mean you forget your brother or sister. You just - eventually (and this is hard) - incorporate them into your life.

I hold all of you in my thoughts.

I still cant believe that my brother is gone. In 2 hours and 15 minutes it is exactly 3 months since he was killed. We are still no closer with charges being brought against his killer. Hopefully they are soon.

Hello 45nanny and 'welcome' too. I hope you are feeling a bit better today and have the strength to read this thread (it is long, but very worth it to see the journey we've all been on over the last year or so). Please tell us about your brother when you can - there are regulars on here whose brothers and sisters I almost feel as though I know, and there are some strange coincidences sometimes.

Shelleylou big hugs. Three months is a horrible length of time.

Hello everyone
Dd was 6 when my sister died, a couple of years ago. Her loss profoundly affected all my dcs. I've tried to talk about her - and her absence as much as possible, but now a friend of ours is dying of cancer and dc is asking all sorts of questions about what happened to my sister - about chemotherapy, wigs, pain, cancer etc. I'm pleased that she's talking about it but I'd rather just ignore it and sob and howl.

Hello to everyone who is new here. I'm glad you've found us, and hope that you will find some comfort in sharing your experience with people who are going through similar ones.

It will be two years in May since Jonny died. I cannot believe it has been that long. It feels like yesterday. I hate that it has been that long that I haven't seen him, heard him, touched him. I am heart broken.

Every time ds does something new or funny, which is a lot atm, I well up. Ds doesn't remember his uncle and as much as I talk about him and mention him as much as is naturally possible, he will never remember him.

I seem to be easily tearful pretty much all the time. The only time I feel better is at that moment when you're drinking just before you get too drunk, that happy-silly-loud phase. I can't tell anyone how I feel, my friends don't let me (as in when I drop hints that I'm not ok, they'll gently move the conversation on to something else.) Dh is great at cuddles but not at talking about this. I don't want to upset my parents. My living brother is in Canada and I don't want to bring him down either.

So I've just started working with this boy who has a brain injury sustained when he was hit by a car. He appears to be little affected in so far as he can function: talk, walk, eat, sleep, make effort to learn, progress. Most of the time when I'm with him I don't think about Jonny, but other times, like now, I wonder, why is he ok, and my brother is dead? Would it be better to have Jonny with us, no matter what difference the brain injury would have made? Would it maybe have made as little difference as it appears to have made to this boy?

I hate the man that killed my brother. I have this palpable rage tucked away inside. I don't know what to do to make ymself feel better. I don't want to feel better. I just want hm back. That is all.

Hey EM. How can it be two years in May? That just doesn't seem possible. How on earth has this time passed?

Your work with the boy sounds amazing, and brave of you. I wonder a lot of the time why some people are alive and my brother isn't. I spent a weekend with some old old school friends, and their insensitivity was quite breathtaking at times (one friend: "Oh I've had such a dreadful year". Turns out she'd been in A&E because her son accidently headbutted her and given her concussion. I could only look at the table, speechless).

I've forgotten -are you getting counselling? I wonder if it would help with the rage. I have a lot of dreams where I'm really angry, but still haven't got round to counselling yet. No motivation really.

MissM, I know. I can't believe it's been that long. I still can't believe he's not here.

I was having counselling. Stopped in March of last year as it had come to it's natural end at that time. I keep wondering if I should start again. But I don't really know what seh could say or what I could do to make this better / easier...

I'm sorry about your friends. Mine are sometimes like that too. They can't help it. But the mind does boggle. How can losing your handbag, for example, be an end of the world experience. It is for some. It's all relative, I guess.

I also find it awful with my Christian friends. The 'God provides', 'never harms us', 'does what's best' cr*p really bugs me. It was such a part of my life before and now I wish it never had been. Just seems to make things harder for me now.

My best friend's sister, let's call her Leslie (who incidentally knew my brother for many years - we were all in a band together as teenagers) spent about an hour on the phone moaning to best friend about how unfair it was that 'Leslie's ex-husband had met someone new and was getting on with his life. Best friend acidly pointed out that no, unfair was Simon getting cancer and dying instead of living happily ever after like he was supposed to, and all of us who loved him having to live without him now.

Good for your best friend Cyteen. I feel like that every time someone whinges about a relatively minor element. Why and how does the world go on turning without our brothers in it?

I'm not religious and fortunately have only a few friends who are. I say 'fortunately' because I couldn't bear all the things you say about yours. Two days after my brother died one religious friend rang and banged on about my brother having gone to a better place, the good dying young, God had other plans for him yadda yadda yadda. All I could think was, but he was in the best place he could possibly have been with his life - why would he need to go anywhere better (and with my lack of belief, and his, he hasn't gone 'anywhere' anyway).

That must be very hard for you EM, especially if it was a part of your life before Jonny died. I think religious people say those sorts of things partly because they've never experienced such terrible grief and partly because it comforts them, not you.

I do think they're only trying to help. Or trying to make me believe something that I just don't at the moment. And I think you're right, it's often about comforting themselves rather than me. If I hear one more time the 'I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper not to harm you' verse, I'll throttle the person that dares .

I had a taxi driver give me all that, when he was driving me to the station after visiting Si in the hospital. This was after I'd explained (at his request) what I'd been doing there, and answered his question about whether I was religious (no). Sensitive!

I think anyone who drives someone from a hospital should keep their mouth tight shut!

It all smacks of the 'made up' to me now. I'm trying so hard to hang onto what's left of my faith, cos I have that (pointless?) belief that it's the only way I could see my brother again. Then what if it is all made up? I will spend who knows how long of my life torturing myself about being a half-*rsed Christian for nothing! Then what if it ains't made up and I miss the oportunity to see him.

This is, ladies, what one would call a real crisis of faith. Which is a pain the backside in itself cos I could so do without that whilst I'm trying to grieve, thank you very much. I can't see how people can really 'find comfort' from faith in these times. Seems to me like blindly holding on to some hope to make one self feel better, rather than anything realistically useful.

Excuse the stream of consciousness...

If it's costing you the mental space to 'see' him in your memories and your feelings, I'd say let it go for now.

That's easy for me to say though because I've never been religious. Used to have some floaty woo-esque spiritual notions as a young'un, but my brother's death has rattled the last crumbs out of me. Having said that, I don't believe we're just animate clay - I know we are more than that, or else how could babies be born with so much personality of their own? Whatever it is in us that makes us who we are, I think it just slips off and rejoins the great pool of energy. So Simon might have become heat or light or decay or cell growth or something, which is cool. There might be an ant's nest or a cloud somewhere because of him.

Since my brother died I've been glad I'm not religious - it's just reinforced my belief that there is no god (although I'm not of the 'if there is a god why does s/he let bad things happen' school). But neither do I believe that 'life is about suffering' and 'there is a reason for everything', both of which have been said to me this year.

EM it must be such a struggle for you, to doubt something that has been so much a part of who you are. Personally, like Cyteen, I'd concentrate on grieving rather than trying to work out if there is or isn't a god. This hideous thing has changed us all so much hasn't it, and we're still struggling to come to terms with what our life is and who we are now. Perhaps who you were pre-Jonny's death was a Christian, but post his death you are not. What's important (she says, failing to take her own advice) is that you carry on (I guess - see, even I don't believe my own motivating words).

In a way, does it matter if it's made-up or not? Cos if it isn't made up, then we'll see our brothers in heaven (or wherever it is), and if it is made up then it doesn't matter anyway does it. I believe I'll see my brother again when I die (remember an earlier post when I admitted that sometimes I wanted to die so I could see him?) and neither he or I believe in an afterlife.

You know, I really wish I didn't know you, but I'm so glad I do, and I really really value talking to you all - sometimes (actually most of the time) it seems as though you are the only ones I can actually talk to properly any more!

Thanks, MissM and Cyteen for your thoughts. Everything is much harder than normal when you're grieving and I can't be doing with the spiritual questioning and torment I've been putting myself through lately. It's on the backburner. How to get through church and housegroup in the near future???

I'm having the most ridiculous mood swings and vivid dreams, much as I was right after Jonny died. I'm tired and fed up.

Also, MissM, I know exactly what you mean. I can't say this stuff to anyone else in RL, so I'm glad you're here too

I need a good night out.

Hey me too! Shall we have a virtual one?

Oooh yes, when? How? I'm there, however you want it to work

Well this is a huge long shot, but where are you in the country? (although I think if I actually met you in person all I could do is hold on to you and bawl. Some night out that would be!)

Have had two glasses of wine and am useless. My little boy wouldn't go to sleep and was howling so I picked him up and rocked him to sleep in my arms. All I could think of was my brother, and how I held him in the days before he died, and I was weeping within minutes. So you see, I am no company whatsoever!

Yeah, I think a thread night out would only go one way really Not that that's a bad thing.

I've probably posted this here before but here is some soothing music for us all.

Lovely lovely lovely. Thanks for that Cyteen. I can go to bed feeling suitably soothed x

Oh yay It always brings a tear for me, but it's a peaceful tear iykwim.

I'm in the south east, just north west of London. Can travel. And I don't mind bawling . Would be nice to be able to do that without having to explain it, i'm sure you know what I mean.

cyteen, thanks for that song. Beautiful. And sad in a nice way. Can I put one on too? I love this track, one of Jonny's favourite bands, we had it on a slide show of photos of him, that dh put together, at his funeral.

sorry, no video but click on the more info to get the lyrics, they're apt

I'm sorry I missed out on this yesterday, could have done with being here.

Ok, am trying to work out where just north west of London might be. It sounds like we're not a million miles away from one another. Which train line are you on? Which London station would you come into?

Lovely song EM - I'd never heard of them. What a lovely thing of your DH to do. And you know Corinne Bailey Rae lost her husband not so long ago - a drugs overdose I think (but don't quote me on that)?

I would put a link to one of my brother's songs, but I'm a little reluctant to be identifiable (although anyone that knows me would know who I am by now, and cyteen knows who I am cos she put two and two together once). The album he recorded with his band a couple of weeks before he died is out. He only plays on one track as he was too weak - it's the last track, and the music just hangs in the air at the end. I've only listened to it once and was crying so hard by the end. I'm not sure when I'll be able to hear it again.