How Do You Hold Faith When Life Breaks?
Surviving sibling loss, holding on to faith, and learning to breathe again after October 28, 2020
(Disclaimer: there were many held back tears while typing this article)
Here’s the truth…I’ve been putting this off for a while.
It’s been sitting in my drafts for 4 months now. Why? I don’t want to bring up the memories again.
But, grief is random. It comes when you least expect it. Especially at times when you want it to go away. And, writing seems to be a healthy outlet for me.
It was just a random Wednesday night. Nothing out of the ordinary. I didn’t expect my world to be flipped upside down….but it did. A memory that will always stick with me. A hole in my heart that will never mend. What am I talking about?
Sibling Loss. But not just sibling loss. Suicide loss.
There’s no polite way to talk about losing a sibling to suicide—especially when that sibling is the one you always thought would outlive everybody because he just knew stuff. My brother Brian wasn’t just smart; the man was basically a walking Google search bar. Ask him about cars, history, mechanical engineering, which bolt should go where, or what country had the best coffee—he’d have an answer before you finished the question.
And then one day… silence.
This is getting really hard to type….bear with me please.
This is my testimony of surviving sibling loss to suicide, navigating the kind of grief that doesn’t sit politely in the corner, and clinging to faith when faith was the only thing left standing.
If you read this far….please…check on your siblings. I beg you. Even if you aren’t on good terms with them. Make amends and forgive.
I don’t say this to make anyone feel guilty but to warn them: time is short and you never know the last time you will speak to your brother/sister/step sibling.