Recently we acquired the school notebooks and other papers taken from Marlys' locker in 1979, back when no one knew who murdered her, years before the crime would be solved. The notebooks had been kept in the evidence lockup all these years. We brought them home, then wondered if we should tell Marlys' brother Ray and sister Lynn about them. Then we made the calls. The death of a sister or brother is bad, the most difficult pain the survivors will, hopefully, ever endure. If a son dies or if a brother dies, the parents or siblings all feel the overwhelming sense of loss and sorrow. We cannot compare what we feel with what we have not endured. Instead of reducing the death of a brother or sister to something less than the parents are undergoing, we should have great sympathy for all. Having said that, we also believe sibling grief is different to the extent that the baggage is particular to the relationship the mourner has with the deceased. When Marlys died, her brother Ray would often say, "I'm only the brother," reminding us that he, too, was in pain. Lynn, Marlys' surviving sister, didn't talk to us about her grieving process in order to shield her mother. She had her friends, and her husband, and she talked with these people. When a brother or sister dies an untimely death, and that can be at any age, the surviving siblings have their own grief. There is the temptation to submerge their own grief, even try to be their sister or brother for their parents. That never works. They will also see their sister or brother put on a pedestal, most often unrealistically blameless in the parents' eyes. Sisters and brothers know each other in ways the parents never could. Siblings have lived with a more human person, not always on good behavior like the parents remember. One couple we know from a support group talked about their family dynamics after a son died. The father repressed his grief because he was the man of the house. "There are two things we never spoke of at our house: my time in the war and our son's murder." Then, he went on to say, the siblings, now adults, decided one day that this had been a bad decision. They gathered, told dad and mom to stay away, and they spent an afternoon talking about their own feelings, the pain, the memories, the good and bad about the death of their brother. Then they met with their parents and shared what they had done. "The family is a lot closer now," the father admits. "I was wrong to keep us silent." The Compassionate Friends has a separate credo for siblings that identifies them as the forgotten mourners. We know much more about grief and support groups than we did in 1979. After all these years we know what to do. We open the door, let Ray and Lynn be full partners in remembering Marlys. Fran and Jack Munday live in Isanti County, MN. E-mail: Isantisupport@aol.com. ©Isanti County News
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