Life without my brother
Nicki Wisdom was in her early twenties when her brother died. Now's she rebuilding her life again...
When my brother died…
I’d not long finished Uni, was settling into my first job and a new town; I thought life was finally coming together and was looking forward to the future. Then a single piece of news shattered all that – my brother had been involved in a car accident and hadn’t survived. To be honest I can’t remember much about that night, just shock and numbness – I couldn’t process any of it, because it seemed so abstract and unreal. Only the night before, he’d left a voicemail for me. How was it possible that he was no longer here?
Isolated
Over the following months I felt increasingly isolated; all my closest friends lived elsewhere and I’d moved away from my parents several years earlier. I had people around me to offer support, but rightly or wrongly I didn’t think anyone could possibly understand what I was going through and so I probably closed myself off to some of them. As a result I really struggled with my self-confidence in social situations and found it hard to find any other identity apart from that of a ‘grieving person’.
My Parents
One major relationship that was affected was that with my parents. Being in my early 20s I had been enjoying my independence and suddenly I was thrown back into a real dependency. I desperately needed my parents and they needed me too. We’d all lost the same person, but I had no idea what it was like to lose a child and they likewise didn’t know what it was like to lose a brother. Our roles had been gradually changing anyway, as a result of growing up, but now our family had changed forever and we had to figure out how the new shape of our family worked.
Moving on…?
After my brother died I had to rebuild my life, one bit at a time. It was (and still is) a long process and you don’t get to rebuild it just as it was. Having at one time thought that nothing could ever be positive again, I’m increasingly finding good things to rebuild my life with, whilst holding on to the memories of my brother.
Read our new interview with Nicki about her work with bereaved young adult siblings.
If this article has affected you, you might be interested in the following event:
A Weekend for Bereaved Parents and Adult Siblings (18+):
Daventry - Friday 26 to Sunday 28 September
Find out more here.
For more useful links on the subject of bereavement, click here. You might be particularly interested in 'Sibling Connection'.
Written by Nicki Wisdom. Posted on 7th May.
Digg it
Reddit
Delicious
Stumble It!
Furl it
