advice for nonbereaved – Unmoored Sister

Needing to know other people are also struggling

It’s taken me a while to come to terms with this simple truth: I am comforted when other people share with me that they, too, are still struggling with my sister’s death.

I used to think it was selfish of me to want other people to be hurting. I realize now that I wasn’t looking at things fairly to myself. I don’t want others to hurt, just as I don’t want my sister to be dead. But both are true. And as I walk through this often isolating experience, the bond of grief, no matter how tragic, is an important reminder that I am not always alone.

Her partner, despite having a new girlfriend only a few months later, still cries at home alone and holds her ashes.

Her work bestie sometimes stays in the car a few more minutes when a song comes on that reminds her of my sister, and sometimes she cries.

Her childhood best friend still struggles with finding meaning in the aftermath of her untimely death.

Many of her coworkers still talk about her regularly, and sometimes they send me a photo of special things, like the t-shirts they made in her honor.

Her cat still looks for her in the house and sleeps on the spot where she died.

These are only the examples I know of, because people have told me their stories, shared their pain. And every time, I have been so, so thankful to know. Because it is easy to convince myself that I alone am carrying the torch of her memory while everyone else is okay. But that’s not true.

My sister was loved by many people. And I may walk closer to the most intense part of the pain, but I am not alone. She did not disappear from this earth without notice. She has not been forgotten. Her name still spills from friends’ mouths and memories of her laughter and face linger.

I would be far less okay if people did not decide to tell me when they think of her, when they hurt, when they privately or publicly continue to mourn. I don’t know if every grieving sibling wants this outreach, but I know it’s been key to my ability to carry myself forward.

It is not the job of the bereaved to make you less uncomfortable

Grief is pain. It is messy. It is unpredictable. And grief is countless times harder to bear if we’re asked to hide it away.

Allow me to start with a definition. The etymology of “bereave” lays bare the brutality of loss itself.

bereave (v.) Middle English bireven, from Old English bereafian “to deprive of, take away by violence, seize, rob.” Since mid-17c., mostly in reference to life, hope, loved ones, and other immaterial possessions.

Anyone who finds themselves in this place has suffered violence of the spirit. But we don’t treat all deaths as equally traumatic.

I have found myself angry during the times when I felt that the people around me were asking me to cower in the shadows to spare them the discomfort of my pain. The times when someone went out of their way to ask me about how I was coping, but they only wanted a chipper answer of no more than two sentences and disapprovingly reacted when that is not what I gave them. The times when people avoided me (sometimes physically dodging like cartoon characters) because they could not handle the possibility of being met with my grief.

To be clear, whenever possible, I have opted to not put myself in a public or social circumstances when I am at my worst. I understand the importance of retreat at times while I ride out the upwelling. However, I have to go to work, because I can’t take months of leave, paid or unpaid. I have to attend certain events, because my future self will regret not engaging with the people I still have and care about. I have to walk out into the sunlight because she loved the sun. I wish it were a societal norm to wear a physical mark of mourning, because I want the world to subtly know that however I seem, however I act, there is a wound under the surface that hurts all the time.

And so I want to unequivocally state here, on this space on the internet I’ve carved, that it is not the job of the bereaved to make the rest of the world less uncomfortable. Grief is pain. It is messy. It is unpredictable. And grief is countless times harder to bear if we’re asked to hide it away. Grief is also the desire in one moment to not mention who we lost and in the next moment, a profound need to tell someone, anyone, about them. Telling stories of my sister still makes me cry, but if I can’t tell them, then no one knows her, and that’s worse.

The people who will sit through the discomfort of watching my eyes fill with tears as I try to finish a sentence before looking away to collect myself enough to speak, those are the people who have made each day more survivable.

I cannot worry about how you feel right now. You may feel as uncomfortable as you wish, and I apologize for that feeling I may cause. But if you’re up to it and willing to lean into the discomfort, that gift you give me is so much more valuable than you know.

The unhelpful things people said that stuck with me

I have some strong feelings about what to not say to someone going through grief.

I know many are anxious to understand what to say or what not to say to someone who is grieving. You can find a lot of articles with advice of varying degrees of helpful. I can only tell you which of the painfully inappropriate and tone deaf things that I remember word for word. Consider these exemplars of what not to say to anyone grieving, and especially to someone navigating the painful and often overlooked world of sibling loss.

“Was she your only sibling?” / “Were you close?” I’m sure it was meant to understand the gravity of my loss, but reminding me in that moment that I was now alone in a profound way was not helpful. It didn’t matter if I had one or five sisters, or whether we spoke daily or had been estranged⁠ — I was clearly in pain.
“I understand how you feel, because I was very sad when my 18-year-old son left home three weeks earlier than planned.” Or any variation of anything that is clearly nowhere near the same magnitude. I have tried to convince myself this was the most painful thing this person had ever felt, and it was a genuine attempt to relate, but even writing it now, I’m still angry.
“How are your parents holding up?” The sequencing matters on this one, but I feel it was often a way for the asker to avoid focusing on me because they were uncomfortable, but it made me feel completely erased and unseen. (In a larger conversation that did not completely overlook me and my pain, this could be okay, to be clear.)
“Oh, are you still sad?” Asked on the day of the one-month milestone since my life transitioned from the Before Times to the After Times. Yes, I’m still very much sad.
“She’s in a better place now.” / “Her purpose here was finished.” How dare anyone try to tell me my sister is better off anywhere than in the loving home she built with her partner enjoying music, food, friends, and life? Sometimes these sentiments were tinged with a religious connotation that also does not align with my understanding of life and the universe, which made it that much harder to accept.
“How are you?” This is such a loaded question. I would have preferred a simple, “It’s good to see you.” It would have even been easier to receive, “What’s on the agenda today?” or honestly anything that didn’t come accompanied with that telltale look of pity. To be clear, from close friends or even well intentioned folks in a private setting, this wasn’t so bad. But asking at a table full of people as I sit down to participate in a meeting is not kind.