22 tcf.org.uk COMPASSION | SIBLING GRIEF - FEATURE: HOW ARE YOU DOING? I don’t know you, not really, you’re a colleague of my cousin who works as a hairdresser, so I see you when I get my hair done. You know about my loss, you know my younger brother Toby has died, so when you see me, it’s only polite to ask me, ‘how are you doing?’ It’s the social convention, but you don’t really want an answer. I give you a tight smile and some cliché response, ‘as okay as I can be,’ or maybe, ‘some days are harder than others,’ or something like that. Again, it’s the social convention, it’s what I’m supposed to say, because we don’t really know each other. Then you give me a sympathetic smile and a nod, like you understand and that’s it. If I was to be honest when you ask me ‘how are you doing?’ I would freak you out. I am not doing okay. Yes, technically some days are harder than others, but when the harder days are like climbing K2, climbing Everest on the easier days is still climbing Everest. I am going through hell and sure they say when you’re going through hell to keep on going, but honestly, I can’t see this ever getting better. I am not okay. Every single day since he died it’s been an effort just to wake up each day, to pull myself out of bed. Most of the time I can’t face showering and getting dressed and I only do so when I physically cannot avoid seeing other people. Right now you’re seeing me with my public mask, the face I show the world, so I don’t get strange looks from complete strangers for breaking down in the middle of Tesco. I lock the pain away so that I can face the outside world. I have lost my younger brother, but my mother has lost one of her children. How can I tell her that it still doesn’t feel real, that it doesn’t seem possible that my brother is dead? Surely if he was dead, if my little brother was truly gone then the world wouldn’t just keep on turning. This is a catastrophic event! My little brother cannot die, and life just keep on going… right? but, he has died, and the world is still turning, so it just doesn’t feel real. Telling my mother that I wish it was me that had died instead would only add to her pain, and there’s no point telling her that I just want him back, because she wants the same thing. I may not give such a non-answer response when my mother asks me ‘how are you doing?’ but I’m still going to make sure my answer doesn’t add to the pain she’s already in. I will say, ‘it’s hard, but I’m coping, keeping myself distracted,’ because she’s grieving too and doesn’t need to worry about me. I’m not going to say that keeping myself distracted so I don’t think about it is my only way of coping. I can’t tell her that I haven’t had more than just a couple hours sleep each night since he died. That I hate going to bed because that’s when my mind likes to remind me that I’ll never be able to talk to him and have him talk back to me again, that I’ll never laugh with him, hug him, joke with him, or even argue with him again. How can I tell anyone that the brief moments of happiness I do feel and the small sections of times that I feel okay for, my brain tortures me over when I lay down to try to sleep. My guilt almost strangles me for not being paralyzed with grief, how can I share this? How can I admit that sometimes, for brief moments, I am okay, and I do forget, until it hits me again, then I’m tortured by my own conscience for not being in constant misery. How am I doing? I’m broken and there’s a piece of me missing that will never be whole again. The pain will never get better. I will never not feel this loss. I’m told that eventually, one day, it won’t feel so bad, but not because the pain is less, but because you learn to live with it. Right now this loss is a throbbing, gaping, aching How are you doing? By Robyn Brann
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTM0NTEz