When I was 17, my older brother Luke died from complications of epilepsy.
His death was sudden and unexpected. He was only 20 years old. I watched my parents, once so steady and reliable, disintegrate into puddles of life’s most intense emotions. Within months, I became unwillingly familiar with the truth that “there is nothing worse than losing a child.”
Thankfully, my family was surrounded by a close-knit, loving community, and I watched from behind a quiet, stunned exterior as friends and family rushed to my parents’ aid. For a month, maybe more, we never had to lift a finger to prepare dinner. The meal train was so swiftly arranged that I assumed such things just appeared naturally in the wake of a tragic death, just like the texts, the confusion, and the tears.
Of course, I benefited from this support as well, but my hyper-sensitive adolescent awareness could not shake the pesky feeling that all of these well-wishers seemed keenly focused on the tragedy my parents had endured. There were comments, so subtly pronounced that I remember them as whispers, that quickly defined my place within the whirlwind.
“They’re struggling more than you know. Take care of them, now.”
“They need you now more than ever. You better call them every day.”
These well-meaning voices convinced me––distraught and eager to do what I could to help return my parents to the people I knew––that I did not get to feel this loss. That, at least for now, it was theirs, and it was my responsibility to let it be theirs. So, little by little, I retreated into the performance of okay-ness that would stunt my grief for years, left with only the memory of the one person who could’ve helped me – my brother.
As far as I can tell, losing a child really is the worst thing that can happen to someone. I did not build the family that was destroyed by fate’s callous unfolding, nor did I feel the sickening pain of watching the life I created disappear.
But I lost something of my own.
I lost my older brother, my guide, the scout who went three years ahead into the uncertainty of life and reported back with calm conviction that it was all right out there, that some of it even got better. I lost my most reliable companion. I lost the best friend I’ve ever had.
When a child dies, the whole family needs support, not just the parents. I don’t think I was particularly easy to care for as an angsty, self-assured 17-year-old who had bitten off more of his adult confidence than he could gracefully chew, but I don’t think that absolved me of the need for the same softness and support my parents received either.
An adolescent, a kid, who suffers the loss of a sibling not only has grief to deal with, but also the loss of stability in their parents, the loss of their role in their family, and the loss of their entire conception of how life works.
Now, as a volunteer in the teen grief support group at Lost & Found, I get the opportunity to offer what I needed but didn’t know how to ask for: presence, understanding, and hope. Someone to stand with them in the storm.
By helping teenagers learn the language to describe difficult emotions and the tools to process them, I receive more than just a sense of pride or satisfaction upon seeing their well-being improve. For me, helping others through loss has been the next step in the journey none of us choose, but all of us encounter in some form: grief.
– Written by Ethan Miller