“He was my North, my South, my East, and West…” From W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues” Growing up, I spent plenty of sleepless nights worri...
You don’t grow up expecting your younger brother to die, even when you’re told to expect it. You don’t live your life waiting for the grief. You just live.
I was only three and a half when James was born, I already had one brother, so was fairly disgusted with my parents for handing me another. I told them they had to name him Oscar, as in Oscar the Grouch, because I was mad.
Editor's note: This post is by my mom. She has experienced much loss in life and I so appreciate the work she has done to help others in their loss, even as she grieves her own. -Jess
Once I had an older
brother.
This picture reminds me of that, and of happier days. For a time there were only two of us kids. Two and a half years apart. I
remember pretending to ride horses with him on the arms of our chairs, and ruling
an empire with him outside our house. We had many fun times.
But that was before…
Before…
“It’s about to be Halloween/you could be anything you
wanted/if you were still here” – Ronan by Taylor Swift.
It’s almost been ten years since I last heard my brother’s
voice. January 22, 2022 will mark ten
years since Joe’s passing. This time of year brings floods of memories with Joe.
Memories of him dressed up as his favorite superhero at Halloween, memories of
him and I trick or treating in our neighborhood, and memories of him planning
for the next Holiday. Joe would always say “and then” until we got to the next
Holiday being Christmas or his birthday - Joe LOVED presents! While his constant “and then” interrogation
would drive us crazy, there’s nothing my family and I wouldn’t give anything to
hear him say those words again.
In
a strange way, I consider myself lucky that I was able to be present, say
goodbye, and prepare a bit for my sister's death. Many do not get that chance
if the death is sudden or unexpected. My memories of the day and week of
my sister's death shine vividly in my mind's eye and as the anniversary
approaches, I struggled to put words to my thoughts and emotions. The
first few years after she died, I tried to turn the thoughts off, however as
the years have gone by, I have come to see these memories as sacred. I
have learned that life can be both painful and beautiful at the same time.
Today is National Grief Awareness Day. It’s a strange thing to me, to consolidate our collective empathy and consciousness towards something that is such a universal human experience to one day. But then again, maybe a day like today is needed because even though most of us have dealt with grief at one point in our lives, we like to compartmentalize it. We like to pretend we can continue through life unaffected and unhindered by the losses we’ve suffered.
“What you’re going through is hard.”
Six simple words I never heard.
In my heart, I begged for somebody
to acknowledge the loss.
Out loud, I told people close to me,
again and again, that I didn’t want to be cheered up.
"Just see me in pain and not
make it about you!" I wanted to scream.
But they couldn’t seem to hear me, and didn’t say the words I needed to hear.
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| Joslin with Jason & Jess at their wedding |
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| Joslin's senior picture(as she wanted to be remembered) |
Preface from Jess: Twenty-two years ago, Jason and I married quickly(in 6 days) so that Joslin could be part of our wedding, which I have never regretted. I have included a picture of us from our wedding, but you all should know that she hated how she looked in this stage of her life. Steroids had puffed her up and she hated her hair. I am including one of her senior pictures as well so you can see how she looked before in the hopes that she doesn't haunt my dreams over posting the wedding picture.
When Jess first floated the idea of me writing about my perspective on grief as a brother-in-law to her sister who died of cancer far too young, I needed time to think about it. For those of you who know me, this is probably shocking, as I am not one to need a lot of time before sharing my thoughts. But my first thought was that I didn’t think I would have that much to offer, my second thought was that this post might unintentionally cause pain or hurt feelings (and I’ve said many prayers since that it won’t), and my third thought was that maybe, just maybe, me putting words down might help someone (a major part of Jess’s motivation in doing this blog), so it’s worth a shot.
My mom is a bereaved parent(my sister) and has lost a
sibling(her brother) as well as many other loved ones. I hope she writes
something for this blog in the future. She posts lots of great things on
Facebook and today she posted this Ted Talk from David Kessler on Grief. It debunks the
language of some of the myths and misconceptions about Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief. This is part of a series on grief, which
discusses how to find meaning and acknowledge that we don’t "move on"
or "get over a loss" but rather learn to live with it. If you have
time, I think you'll find these helpful. On the side of the Ted Talks webpage are other Ted Talks on Grief as well if you wish to find even more.
Here are the Ted Talk links:
1) David Kessler: Finding Meaning after Loss
2) We don't move on, we move forward from Grief:
3) How to support yourself and others in grief.
I Still Feel Scared Sometimes
My brother, Rob, died by suicide fifteen years ago now.
I’m a grown adult, with an oldest daughter in college and youngest almost in middle school.