Hello.
I don’t know your name, your face or your story. All I know is that one day, maybe late at night, you looked up an open letter for the loss of a sibling. I know that at some point in your life your sibling passed away, leaving your family torn in pieces and you are struggling to see past that.
How do I know this? Maybe because one night in my senior year of high school, almost 10 years after my brother died, I did the same thing. I found exactly 3 letters. 3 out of 1000s of letters. Letters for parents, letters for spouses, even letters for pets. But what the world chooses to hide, chooses to block, is the pain of loss in a child, or even an adult, when they lose a sibling.
I know that when it happened, your soul felt torn to shreds. You didn’t know if your parents and doctors were playing a trick, if this was a bad dream. You felt lost, adrift in the sea of guilt and anger and sadness. You were told that it wasn’t anything that you could have stopped, that you needed to be strong. How are you supposed to be strong when you are falling apart?
Maybe you cried for days, maybe you locked it away until you were alone. Maybe you stayed around people, maybe you never left your room. Maybe you were strong maybe you weren’t.
For days, months, years, you have struggled to remember the happy times. Their laugh, their smile, the way they walked. Slowly those things are beginning to fade. And that terrifies you. How are you supposed to tell your children one day what their aunt or uncle was like if you can’t remember them?
You cry for days.
Months.
Years.
But one day that grief, that guilt slowly turns into fondness. That desire to cry becomes the desire to laugh. You will one day tell your children about the ridiculous fights and the messes you caused together. Your partner will know the stories. You will be able to hang up the pictures, play the videos. Listen to that song, watch the movie.
One day the grief will fade.
And you will be ok.
Sincerely,
Someone
