I’m so broken. I never thought this would happen to me. A few days ago, my beautiful 31 year old sister was hit by a car at a zebra crossing. She died instantly. She was so kind, never broke any rules, intelligent and loved. I am shattered that her life is cut so short. Her husband is devastated. I am so conflicted. I live in another country with my husband and two kids. I am scared that life will just get back to a routine for everyone and she will be forgotten. I feel guilty that over the years I’m going to get busy with life like nothing happened (my mother lost her sister in her 30s and we hardly ever spoke about it). I loved my sister a lot and she was my greatest support. She was 6 years younger to me and idolised me. I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t want to ever feel happy again. I just want to be holed up in a dark room forever but I know I can’t/won’t do that as I will be busy “getting back into a routine for the sake of my kids”. Everyone is expecting me to be strong for my mother and my brother in law. Maybe he is feeling worse than me as he has spent every minute of the last 8 years with her. I have lost a piece of my heart. Can anyone who has been here tell me what happens in the next few days/weeks/months/years?? Is there anything that can help me in the immediate aftermath of this? Nothing seems to have helped so far.
Hi Moogsie
I’m so sorry for the loss of your beautiful sister in such traumatic circumstances. I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through.
We lost my mum in April after a very short illness. She was diagnosed with advanced cancer only 3 weeks before her death. We’d no idea she had cancer. But she was 80 and had lived a long and fulfilled life.
It’s early days for you yet. Be gentle with yourself and don’t expect too much of yourself. Take as much time as you need off work. Also give yourself the space and time to mourn. It does gradually get easier and less painful in my experience. But then out of the blue things happen which trigger your grief again. I have found being around really good friends who just accepted me as I am helped.
There is no right or wrong with grief. It’s an individual journey for each of us and there is no time scale. Be kind and gentle with yourself.
I don’t know if any of what I’ve said has helped. Take care and look after yourself.
Thank you for your beautiful words. I’m hurting so much. There are patches in the day where I feel literally nothing and then lows that hit me real hard. I hope it gets easier but at the same time I want to keep feeling the pain so I’m closer to her. So conflicted.
Hi Moogsie,
I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your sister in such sudden and traumatic circumstances. I cannot imagine what that is like.
I lost my younger brother a year ago to suicide. Living in another country than the rest of my family, I was also worried that life would just carry on and I would forget about him. In my experience, I haven’t forgotten about him at all. In fact, I think about him every single day (probably more than I did before he passed away). For me, I found that the grief doesn’t necessarily get any lighter, but you find ways of carrying it with you.
In the circumstances of my brother’s passing we tried to remind ourselves that his life was so much more than the way he passed away. I found this way of thinking about it quite helpful.
Be kind and gentle to yourself, and do what you think is best for you. I found helping arrange stuff around my brother’s funeral quite theraputic, as it gave me something to do, however it was also very overwhelming at times. So do what works best for you.
There is no right or wrong way to grieve (as long as it doesn’t involve any crime, that would be less helpful). And different family members might grieve differently, and that is absolutely fine!
Take good care of yourself, and remember to take all the time you need.
Oh thank you lottea. I was looking for some perspective from someone in a similar situation as me. Sorry about your brother. I can now unfortunately imagine how traumatic it must have been for you. Im hoping to find some comfort In my thoughts along the way but it helps to know that your brother is always on your mind.