Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gwen H on April 20, 2014 at 4:34pm

Dear Abbi,

I'm sorry for your loss, and you have no answers or reasons for the unthinkable for the loss of your brother.

My Mom choose to leave us, but I do know her reasons for her decision. It doesn't make the loss easier, but I do understand why. Losing her sight due to a stroke, was the loss of her independence, and so many things she treasured doing.

There are no ways to console you. Only time makes it a bit easier to bear. It will always hurt, but not on the hourly basis, that you are enduring right now. Every first in your life will tear you apart. For me it has been 16 years, but I feel it especially hard on the days we used to celebrate and enjoy being together.

My thoughts are with you, on this terribly difficult day.

Gwen

Permalink Reply by Abbi Loper on April 20, 2014 at 8:15pm

Thank you so much, it helps hearing other peoples stories & knowing I'm not alone. The thing that gets me the most is that I will never get the answers I need. He was my best friend when I went through a time of bullying.. It's just too hard to handle.

Permalink Reply by Karen Liller on April 20, 2014 at 8:55pm

Hi Abbi:

I am so sorry for your loss.  I lost my beautiful sister Lisa on November 7th and every holiday without her seems so unreal.  We were very close.  She had neuroendocrine cancer and I really thought she would beat it and be healed.  I do have my faith but I must admit it has been tested.  The world seems off kilter to me.  They say things get better but I think they just get more tolerable.  I know Lisa would want me to reach out to others and help.  I also know I too always seek to understand why but it takes so much energy it exhausts me-I think it might be better sometimes to use that energy to honor her memory.

I really hope you find peace and comfort.

Karen

Permalink Reply by Abbi Loper on April 20, 2014 at 9:20pm

Thank you Karen, people tell me Greg would hate to see me upset too but it's very hard sometimes. Specially since I'm still in school, and seeing everyone so happy everyday just makes me mad. I feel so selfish but I can't control it!

Permalink Reply by Jen W. on April 21, 2014 at 9:04am

Abbi, I wish there was something I could say to make things better. I lost my brother in Oct and I understand how excruciating it is. My brother Jerald (Boo) died alone in his bathroom from a drug overdose. I know that he didnt intend to kill himself but he did have a sort of death wish and had exhibited risky behavior since he was a teenager. I know that he KNEW he was risking death by mixing the drugs he took and played a sort of Russian Ruelette (sry spelling) when he did it. I know that he wouldnt want my life to be ruined by his death and your brother probabky would have felt the same way. Sometimes you never get the answers as to why. I have been a basket case for these months. My brothers wife spitefully had him cremated and didnt even bother to have him a funeral. We had our own service a couple weeks later but the closure just hasnt come. I chose not to see him when I got to the hospital right after he was brought in already dead so I never got to say goodbye.
I wanted to remember him alive instead of on a gurney with a tube in his mouth from the attempts to revive him. I miss him a lot, but am starting to function better as time goes by- at least some days. Everyone else seems to be doing ok, including my mom. And it angers me to see everyone going on as if he never existed. But I try not to judge. I hope you find some peace and a way to cope with this. Its the hardest thing to feel alone at a time like this. Feel free to reach out to me if you need to talk..

Permalink Reply by Abbi Loper on April 21, 2014 at 1:00pm

Thank you so much, It's so nice to know I'm not alone.

Permalink Reply by Kimberly on April 21, 2014 at 7:57pm

I'm so sorry for your loss.  I lost my oldest sister this past October. It's been just over 6 months and I still struggle. I know what it's like to still be sitting here asking why? Though for different reasons. My sister went missing one night, and found in the river the next morning. Her tox screen showed drugs in her system. From the beginning they treated the situation like my sister was nothing. Just another addict. Even before the tox results. They believe she caused her own death. We know it's a possibility...drugs made her seizure disorder worse and she could  get disoriented. But where they found her makes us question her getting there alone. She had her problems, but she was still somebody. Her case sits cold because there is no way to know exactly what happened that night.

 

We're all getting urn necklaces to carry a part of her with us. I have mine, I just have to send it to the funeral home. I look at pictures from when my sis was happy and healthy and I wonder, what happened? Losing a sibling is so difficult, and I hope we can all find some peace. I'm always open to talk to anyone who needs to. /hugs

Permalink Reply by Karen Liller on April 22, 2014 at 8:06am

Hello Kimberly-

I hope you find the answers you seek about your sister.  Your family deserves to know what happened.  I know that the medical and judicial systems seem to forget that every human being and their families need to be treated with compassion and respect.  

I hope you find peace and the days ahead are not so difficult.

Karen

Permalink Reply by Caryn Hersh on April 22, 2014 at 11:14am

I am so sorry for your loss. I have sat on my brother's grave asking the same question. It's been 15 months for me, in some ways it feels like yesterday and in some ways it feels like an entire lifetime ago.

Unfortunately you will have to come to the same realization I did there will never be a good enough answer to the question of WHY. Sometimes I think I have it figured out, why he did what he did but other times I can't fathom what he was going through.

All I know is that I have to keep going for his son, my nephew who is only 2 1/2 yrs. old, I need to be able to teach him all about his father. So I keep pushing, I went to grief counseling and it helped, a lot. But the sadness is still there. Just not as deep or as consuming. I am able to function now. I can have fun, I can smile and laugh. That took awhile

I know my brother wouldn't want me to be sitting around crying, he would want me to continue to live, to live the life he wasn't able to have. I got diagnosed as bipolar and got meds something he probably should have done YEARS ago. It turns out I am the stronger one, I always thought it was him, but now I can't let him down, I promised him I would teach his son all about his favorite things, things his wife never knew. I won't break that promise.

 

Permalink Reply by Kimberly on April 22, 2014 at 5:45pm

Thank you Karen. We've accepted that we may never know. But how her case was handled was ridiculous. It was a small town and they just didn't care. My sister had her problems, but she was my big sis. She was the oldest, and the role she played in our lives....it's missing. I'm lucky to still have 7 living sisters. (half&step included) But there will always be a void.