aunt

there was quite a bit of nausea for both my sister and myself when her son died. and that terrible feeling of dread in the stomach. i think she and i both existed on toast and tea for weeks. just try to ride it out, nourish yourself as best you can whenever you can tolerate it. it will get better.

hi everyone i hope all of you are doing ok, recovering, getting by, doing whatever you need to do to heal. this is an updaye for any who were reading along... it has now been 46 weeks since my nephew lost his life. i have definitely made progress, although nothing about it is concrete. while things have gotten better, there are still days when i find myself crushed and shaking, heartbroken and terrified, hopeless and smothered by sorrow. i am afraid for my sister. i believe she has spent most of the past 10 months "out running" the reality of her loss. she is determined to keep busy and stay occupied. this is something she does well, but it's obvious that there is still so much inside her that she hasn't dealt with. because as soon as she runs out of distraction she begins to have bad days and to experience the pain and grief. i completely understand why she would try to avoid it at all costs. i just feel so concerned about what's going to happen. this can't last forever. there's nothing i can do besides wait and hope and pray for her. sometimes i look at my nephew's picture and i still think it just can't be real. we're coming up on the 1 year anniversary - aug 2 - i'm considering a balloon release with some family and friends, but i'm not sure she'll go for it.

wow jenny, i'm so glad you posted. i'm so sorry for your loss. i hope that time has helped you and your family. i believe that will happen for us. we are coming up on 6 months now, and in that time we have managed to get thru my daughter's birthday, thanksgiving, Christmas, New years, and what would have been his 22nd birthday, yesterday. even so at times it still feels fresh. thank you for your words, i truly appreciate them.

thank you jonh b, hope you're doing ok. i just came back to update this thread for anyone reading. many of the things i was posting about earlier have come and gone. my sister has received the medical report detailing her son's injuries. she has obtained the police report which gives a sketch of the percieved path his car took, how and when he was ejected, as well as a written explanation. once she had the information contained in these reports, there was no more looming information about the distance he was thrown, so no more reason for me to worry about her going up there w/o me. she visited the site while the painted outline was still visible on the road, 38 feet from where his car finally came to rest after rolling twice. she has contacted the officer who was first on the scene and asked him about her lingering questions, and his opinion about the whole thing based on his experience. there were no actual witnesses, and so we have to be satisfied with this. there are some things we will never know. which injuries were sustained when, and when did he lose consciousness? how much was he aware of? what exactly did he experience? all we can do is put together the pieces we have and make an educated guess about the rest. she has been attending counseling w a minister and it has helped her some. my sister has gone from sitting in a lawn chair at his graveside, as she did immediately following his death, to now where she does not feel good there anymore. i am sharing this in case others are experiencing the same changes and wondering why. it seems obvious that this would be different for everyone, and will remain fluid. i feel sure it will change again... i still need to go there and i have been every couple of weeks. thanksgiving was not as difficult as we had anticipated. of course his absence was profoundly obvious. he was and is so terribly missed. but we all took care of each other's feelings. we didn't pretend - there was no feeling of "the elephant in the room". we talked about him some, but did not make a big emotional scene at dinner. i think this was best for her. it has been about 19 weeks. just yesterday we were finally able to go to the site of his accident and hammer a cross into the ground, marking the place where his spirit left his body. this is something she has wanted to do from the beginning but has only been able to manage just now. and now Christmas... we will get thru it. the holidays are really just days. i miss him as much on any old day of the week as i did on thanksgiving, as i will on Christmas, and i know she does too of course. but when they come around, for me it has made everything so real. no more denial. he really is gone forever.

hi cheesehead i am so sorry about your mom when i read your post i just had to reply, even tho our circumstances are not exactly the same. i lost my nephew in august. he was 21, my sister's only child. it has been hell. it has been 4.5 months and we are only just beginning to stop obsessing over the details of what happened, and what he may have experienced in his final moments. it was a car accident that took his life. we have pursued our "need to know", pretty much to the end of the line. he was alone and there were no witnesses, so there is only so much information to be had, but we had to have it. my sister, and myself especially. my mother also. we have obtained medical and police reports, as well as contacting the officer who was first on the scene. it is hard and painful, but necessary. we have struggled with every new piece of info. it's hard to explain, maybe impossible to explain. we just deal with the information, cry over it or whatever, and in a few days or a few weeks, even tho the pain of the loss is still unbearable at times, and the reality is still unbelievable, it does help to know whatever there is to be known. it is certainly better than NOT knowing, and wondering, and imagining the worst. please see my post and especially the reply posts from Marty T in: LOSS OF A CHILD --> where do i fit in? (lost my nephew) i think the responses i got here will help you also. i know you must be going thru a very bad time right now. i hope this helps in some way. i am sincerely sorry for your loss. aunt

hi funnyface ~ i related a lot to your posts, although your loss and mine are not exactly the same (i just lost my 21 yr old nephew 3 mos ago). i think that time passes differently for some of us, and what seems like plenty of time to get over it to some people feels like a very short time has passed to others. my husband is already taking pleasure in looking at photos of our precious nephew. my daughter made a CD to be played at the service, and he listens to it all the time at work. i can't listen to those songs right now. looking at his pictures is still too painful. i know i will get there but i'm not there yet. re: cliche expressions ~ they just don't hold the same meaning anymore. of course in my mind i believe he's in heaven, he was a Christian and had accepted the Lord. but he's not here with us. heaven is most certainly a better place, but it still seems too painful... not having him here with us... to find comfort in that knowledge. i believe this will also change in time. re: feeling like hibernating ~ i thikn this is really really normal. you are feeling depressed, very common, and there is a certain "umph" you are lacking right now. it keeps you from feeling able to converse in a normal way, from feeling motivated or enthused about anything. it's easier to hide than to try to be "on". give yourself some time. in these past 3 months i have gone thru a myriad of changes in the way i'm feeling, day-to-day. your feelings will change. they will pass, and then return. you'll have a better day here and there, and then maybe a string of good days, and a string of bad. that's how it's been for me and my family. one more thing i wanted to say - tell your husband that you need time and comfort, until you don't need it anymore and to please just stick it out with you even if he doesn't always understand. you can't help it that you're not "over it" yet, he also can't help it that he is not sharing your feelings. a death in the family can cause troubles in a marraige and i suspect this very thing to be a common culprit. my struggle is similar right now to yours; i have a wonderful husband and 2 precious kids. i want their holidays to be a happy time, and i want to appreciate and enjoy the blesings in my life, but sometimes i don't know how to get around the feelings of sadness and loss. time.... it just all takes time.... hope this is helpful to you somehow

i'm so sorry angel. can you tell us what happened? i hope you can find something here...

hi beth i just wanted to chime in here, your post made me think. my sister lost her 21 yr old son just 3 months ago. they had gone thru some difficult years, mostly typical teeanger stuff and she was a single mom. in the most recent year or so, her son had begun to turn around and it seems he was realizing just what he had in her. shortly before his death he took his mom to dinner for her birthday. this was his idea, and his treat. a very different set of circumstances and feelings between them than what had been typical only months before. also he had recently gone thru a painful breakup with a girl he truly loved. he came to his mom, and he cried about it with her. he talked to her. he confided in her, showing that he valued and trusted her. i am writing this to you in hopes that my perspective can bring you some comfort. your relationship with your son, your closeness, was and is a great gift to you. i'm sure you know that. you're a lucky mom to be able to know that you were your son's best friend. and he was a lucky boy. my sister talks about why we all have to suffer because of one simple mistake, and that she is being punished, that her son was punished. i don't see it that way. anyway my point is that she can say well at least it was obvious that things were turning around and getting better between them - that is gift for her. instead of asking why did it have to happen now just when things were starting to get better? she can say it's good that it didn't happen last year when things were so bad between us. i have been praying for my sister that she will in time begin to realize that instead of the sudden loss of his life being a punishment, the 21 years she had him were a gift. your son sounds like an amazing person and it's true, there is no way we can ever understand why a young promising life ends like that. probably right now the fact that you were so close makes it all the more painful. i hope and i believe that in time you will take comfort from knowing how close you were. you know he loved you, and even better he knew how you loved him. i don't know if i'm communicating this right but it's just my thought, hope it helps. i'm so sorry you lost your boy.

i replied to this the other day but it has disappeared. thanks for posting this article marty.

this is very helpful marty. when my nephew died 11 weeks ago, my mother (77yrs old) kept telling me that i should try to hold it together for my sister's sake. when my tears would get the better of me in the presence of my sister, i felt i was making things worse for her and being selfish. each time i apologized to her she would say that she didn't feel that way at all. my mom is just old school. she has lost many people in her long lifetime and that's just the way you did things back in her day. my children are 17 (son) and 20 (daughter). i have always believed in openness about our feelings, whatever they my be, and have raised them this way. at the time- and since- they lost their cousin they were both, even my son, able to allow their feelings to show, at home, at the service, at the visits to the cemetery, etc. i believe it is unhealthy to repress or internalize our feelings. i believe that we have to let the painful things hurt before they will begin to get better. thanks for posting this.

no problem maylissa, we'll wait to see how my sister is feeling and plan accordingly. and i agree, doing whatever feels right to you, conventional or not, is the right choice. i wish you the best holiday season possible.

hi vgbowers i am so sorry about your nephew and i can truly say i understand how you feel. i don't have too many answers for you, i am still seeking them myself. i believe we will be asking why and wishing things could be different forever. but i would say that you should keep thinking about your faith, and that your nephew is with the One who loves him most, even more than his parents or family, i know that can seem impossible but i believe it. we will suffer from our loss but the one we've lost will not suffer, ever again. i am back and forth, some days while i still believe this it does not ease the pain in my heart, and other days it brings comfort to keep company with the pain. i think it will always be there but we can take knowledge from the experience of others and know that it will get better somehow. being the aunt is quite the predicament. my sister has lost her child. i have so many different feelings, all mixed up in my grief. my sadness is so strong and yet i don't want to infringe upon the "ownership" of her loss. but i know it is my loss too. unlike you i am the youngest of my siblings, and most definitely not the strong one. i am also very concerned with how we will manage thru the holidays. you said your nephew left you on Mother's Day. that is so sad. i'm sure it seems that day will be ruined forever for your family. it will certainly never be the same. my nephew left us the day before my daughter's birthday, and next year will be her 21st, but how will we celebrate that milestone birthday properly? she is crushed over losing her favorite cousin and i don't know what we'll do or what she'll even feel like doing. it's no one's fault of course, but even on the very same day as my nephew's death my sister was expressing her concern about my daughter's bday being ruined forever. i can't let that be the case of course but it will take time... how is your sister doing? do you have a close relationship? i hope you'll keep coming back here, it's nice to have some "aunt" company and maybe it will be for you too. glad you posted.

hi maylissa i am happy for you to have found a way to treat yourself on this holiday, a way that feels good. sounds like a great idea for a new tradition to me. we have recently lost my nephew, and sadly going out was something we had done on Thanksgiving the past few years -with him - so this won't work as an escape for us. but we will get thru it. i hope you have this kind of successful experience for the remaining holidays.

i spoke to my sister for a long time last night on the phone. she was calm and we talked a lot about the things i posted last. the scene,his injuries, the distance, etc. i think it's better if she is somewhat prepared before she goes, and at the same time it's hard to come out and say how awful.... i don't know maybe i have made too much of a deal out of this one detail. she says she is less concerned with the actual evidence of the accident, and more with the fact that it is the place where he died. i hope she still feels that way when she goes there to see for herself. i hope she is not affected the way i was. she has finally been able to contact the police dept and will be picking up the accident report today. i hope it contains the information that will answer some of our questions.

marty thank you for this information, and for reminding me that we have these rights as parents and family members. my sister is waiting on the accident report from the police, and then she feels she'll be ready to go to the place where the accident occured. because of where he landed, so far away, i have been so worried about this. maybe i am uneducated but the distance seems just unbelievable. in the beginning i asked her to promise not to go without me, and hopefully my husband as well. my daughter and i went to the accident site that same day, and we saw lots of evidence there. later that day my son also wanted to go and i allowed him and his sister to go there without us. this is when my daughter saw the painted marks on the road, the ones we hadn't seen the first time. we hadn't seen them because they were so far from where the car had been. we spent that evening at my sister's home, working out the details with the funeral home director. of course my kids were crying and upset, but i didn't realize it was becuase of anything other than the obvious. when we got home my daughter broke down. she was so distraught, and confided to my husband what she had seen, and then told me. how could i let my children go there alone? the next day i was absolutely possessed to see for myself. it couldn't be as bad as she had said. i stood looking and looking for those marks, it took maybe 5 minutes of searching with my eyes, looking further down the road, i saw nothing. she had said "yards away". i was going to call her on my cell when my eyes fell on something... across the street and way way down. i crossed the road and there was orange paint. not a solid outline like you see on tv, but more like marks where his feet, arms and the top of his head had been. on the grass there was a painted circle, and the words "left shoe" i cannot think of a time in my life when i was more horrified. i couldn't stand, i had to sit on the ground. i thought i might be sick or faint for a minute. this is why i made her promise not to go there without me. and she has kept that promise. days later my husband and i went there again to take pictures, just to preserve the scene, because i knew someday she would probably want to see. also we photographed the car, it had been towed to a gas station nearby. she knows i have them and has mentioned maybe looking at them soon. i don't know if the paint will still be there. it has been over 2 months, but my husband says it takes a long time to fade away. but i don't want to go there again until i go with her. at first i hoped she'd never know any of this, but in time i realized that of course she would want to and has the right to. i know i would demand every detail of anything that ever happened to my child. it is as necessary as it is painful. i have his side-view mirror in my glove compartment. we found it on the ground at the scene. i can't bring myself to get rid of it. i don't know what to do with it. seems so stupid...