Was God There?

Sometimes I hear people voice a prayer for God to be with others as they travel or if they are sick, as though God's presence will protect them. It used to hurt. Now I realize it's just naiveté.

I know that God is there when children die - when people die. There used to be a TV show where an angel was present when someone died, but that was TV. I somehow don't think God needs angels to run errands on earth when He is everywhere.

I believe that God takes away the pain that accompanies illness or injury as children leave their lives - or in that awful moment of regret when a teenager, in an accident of judgment, chooses suicide. I believe that God numbs children to reality when they are victims of horrendous crime and murder. I believe that God was with each student killed in a campus shooting spree, and I like to think that He even made His Presence known to the shooter as the final self-inflicted shot occurred. How God acted or why He chose to act is beyond me - but then it's supposed to be beyond our understanding.

Last Sunday's message in church brushed on the subject of the image of God. According to the Bible, we are created "in His Own image." Some think that means that we look like God, but I'm comfortable interpreting that in a much more liberal way.

When I was a child, I was taught that God clung to us like the air around us (the Holy Spirit was like the wind). I like that image - that God is so close, and that he allows us to shape ourselves even though he is surrounding us with a loving warmth somewhat like a favorite blanket. There is not doubt in my heart, soul, or mind: God was with our son.

Unfortunately, when people pray for God to be with someone who then becomes injured or dies, they didn't pray with enough sincerity that they even remember the prayer. But if they do remember, they might consider that God was there (just as they prayed). He wasn't somewhere else. God loves us. Perhaps we could not be there, but God was at the scene.

When Brothers and Sisters Grieve

We love our children and protect them, but we can be naive when it comes to assessing their vulnerability. Children get the flu and usually get over it very rapidly; some children have surgery, and recover so quickly that most adults can't believe it; we see them cry because of hurt feelings and watch ten minutes later as they seem to forgive and forget. We expect our children to recover more quickly than adults because they are children. That is what is usually true except when they experience the death of a sibling – or even a cousin or close friend. A teenager is especially vulnerable.

The death of a teenager represents a loss to many young friends when children are adolescents. Teenagers develop reciprocal relationships among their friends that are often distinct from the relationships with family. When one of their friends dies, these children perceive a loss within the unit of those relationships, and the extent of the loss is frequently not fully comprehended by adults. The friends often have not only lost a member of their group, but they perceive that they have lost a part of their future - the teen who died may well have been a part of their perceived future. They must suddenly face their own mortalities - and in recent generations this awareness does not present itself so frequently it did in the past. Finally, they begin to perceive the unfairness of death, and in becoming concerned with death rather than life; they begin to have an attitude of "what's the use of conforming to the rules of life."

A normal fear of adults and children alike is this: Because an individual has died, he may recede from memory as well as from reality. Adults need to reflect on their own losses of friends, and try to understand the depth of the relationship the deceased teenager had with friends. Friends of teens need to be assured that a kind of relationship will continue as a part of the memory. A statement by an adult such as "My best friend died when I was younger - I still think of that friend nearly every day” is comforting and usually true!

The death of a sibling is less understood in our current culture than any other relationship death. When the living sibling is a teenager, support is nearly totally lacking, and the loss is more profound if the two siblings were close in age. As an adolescent begins to develop independence from his family, the relationship with siblings is the last separation to be made. The relationship between siblings may become stronger as the independence from parents grows. In addition, the fragile independence of an adolescent may be replaced with a need to protect the parents, and so the child is not likely to be willing to express his own grieving and thoughts to his already bereaved parents.

Many adolescents view the loss of their siblings as loss of part of themselves. They are therefore not only grieving for their lost brothers or sisters; they are also grieving for the part of the self that is gone. Adolescent siblings who are very close have few memories that are entirely their own - most memories involve the other sibling. Nighttime dreams must surely include the other sibling, and waking from such a dream might cause confusion, anger at reality and then renewed grief. The siblings may have been very dependent on one another, and the sudden need to make decisions without the benefit of the other's opinion, whether agreeable or not, is overwhelming. Again the anger of grief is intensified in adolescents. They may feel punished by the death, and lash out at the population in general with vandalism or stealing.

Children and teenagers are egocentric, believing that all things revolve around them. They may believe that they have done something wrong and, in order to punish themselves, begin to demonstrate self-destructive behavior that may at one time been unacceptable to them. This includes addictions, suicidal thoughts, reckless driving, etc. Such behaviors must be stopped because the end result is extremely dangerous and could lead to another death.

Teenagers may have exaggerated feelings of guilt. They may have guilt because they resent the deceased sibling's leaving them, or they may feel guilty for sibling rivalry and bickering. Some may feel guilty because they always wanted a room of their own, and now, with their brother or sister gone, they have just what they thought they wanted! It is natural for children to wonder if they are loved less by parents than brothers and sisters. After a death, with all the attention given to the child who died, they may think they see confirmation of greater love for the sibling, and that leads to guilt as well.

Children may resent their parents' making an attempt to return to their work lives and direct their anger toward one or both parents. Then, the child may feel guilty about how he has treated the already-wounded parent. Society is not aware of the difficulties of sibling loss. Many children do not even try to comprehend their parents' grief because they believe it to be more intense than their own. To them, parents are still heroic, and these children perceive parental grief to be beyond the realm of their own hurt. The possibility that life may include even more intense grief than they now feel is frightening and depressing to them.

As a bereaved parent who will never forget the life and the loss of our son, I have nevertheless come to the conclusion the death of a child may be harder for some siblings to bear than it is for some parents. After all, parents have strong support almost immediately. Other bereaved parents write to them or visit with them, aunts and uncles of the deceased child continue to make supportive contact, and grandparents show intense concern about the welfare of their own children. The sibling, however, might believe that grandparents as well as parents are more grieved than he or she is. The only other human being that can say "I know how you feel" is another bereaved sibling, and because he or she has shared a too-similar situation, many are still unable to speak of their own loss. If they are siblings who are now over 25 years of age, they find it difficult to relate to younger grieved siblings.

This problem did not present itself so frequently years ago, when childhood death was more common and families were larger. Then there were several bereaved siblings within either the family unit or the extended family that could help the newly bereaved sibling deal with the grief. Parents know that children can die; children don't comprehend that until it happens. Parents have lost someone very important, but it was someone that was added to their lives; siblings who were close in age have lost someone that was always there. Many parents have a mature awareness of their faith; siblings are only beginning to question faith - leading sometimes to more guilt.

Parents are so overwhelmed by their own grief that they have difficulty comprehending the grief of any one of their children, and most children are unable to explain their feelings about grief to anyone except a parent. Several weeks or even months may pass before the reality of the death begins to effect a change in the adolescent. First, children are great imitators, and when the loss has been someone very close to them, they look to others around them to emulate when their grief is too painful and numbing to allow the child to act on his own. Second, the loss often does not present itself as real for several weeks or months; the child may subconsciously consider the absence to be temporary -as though the brother or sister is on a vacation, camp or at a friend's home. Adults and even adolescent friends may interpret the bereaved sibling to be doing "quite well" within a short time after the loss. It may be much later, as the adolescent begins to accept the fact that a sibling has died and will not return, when new behaviors may begin.

The solution to the lack of support for sibling bereavement is one of general social education. Currently, society does not understand the intensity of some grief, but some individuals are at least willing to listen to adults. We must begin to listen to the children. We must stop assessing a child's recovery from grief as though it were a childhood illness, or the death of a mere acquaintance. In today's world, adults may make comments to a bereaved sibling that include, "Your parents are getting over this, why can't you?" or "Your parents have lost a child. They must be grieving more than you and they aren't misbehaving." The statement that one might "never get over the loss of a child" is common knowledge among bereaved parents and some siblings. However, the reality of that statement might be considered to be dramatic by most adolescents. Family members, churches, schools, the law, and other facets of society need to be aware of bereaved siblings' needs, and must begin to address them as real and intense.

While parents need an enormous amount of support in the death of a child, siblings must have as much support or more. At the very least, we must help these siblings face their grief to the extent that they will some day be able to provide real help to other grieving siblings. Once the general population begins to be aware of the significance of a sibling's loss, then there will be individuals in the extended family, the churches, the schools and elsewhere who will be more determined to fill at least some of those needs.

What can parents do?
1. Talk about the child that died, and be sure to include a balance between the good and bad behaviors. Parents should talk about the "whole" child any way, in order to have an accurate memory.
2. During holidays, include a remembrance of the child.
3. Consider that “shrine” in the corner of the living room. Might it be a little “too much?” If the sibling makes a negative comment about it, perhaps it is. If not, do you have pictures of your other children in the living room as well?
3. Attend your living child's high school events. Of course it is painful, but those feelings subside when you understand the appreciation of your living child.
4. Ask the grieving sibling to help plan birthday and death day anniversaries. One of our children was furious because we didn’t celebrate our son’s birthday six months after he died. I still puzzle over that – I suppose the word “celebrate” has always been in the way, but I don’t know what was expected.

An immediate solution for bereaved families is to make a deliberate effort to provide outside help. Ask a person who lost a brother or sister if they would talk to your teen. Seek help from a counselor. However, most psychologists are as uninformed as the rest of society in understanding the grief of a sibling, so ask questions that will help you decide whether the counselor will understand. Best of all, ask the counselor if he or she has personally experienced the death of a child or sibling. Adolescents and the parents alike must comprehend that the expression of grief in a healthy way is acceptable for a long period of time, but misbehavior is not an acceptable way to deal with loss - it cannot be excused. Misbehavior in adolescents often mushrooms - growing into dangerous and life-threatening situations.

This discussion is not a scientific statement; it has no footnotes because no references were researched, with the exception of visiting with other bereaved parents. I believe it is fairly close to accurate. In talking to other bereaved parents, I have found that teenage siblings generally exhibited similar behavior patterns. The grief of a child for a sibling is not trivial - it is perhaps one of the most profound and most socially misunderstood experiences of our culture.