Our surviving adult children

One of a series of leaflets published by The Compassionate Friends Bereaved of a sibling A sibling is someone who shares our own life story. The death of a sibling can therefore be a huge loss in terms of the surviving sibling’s sense of identity and they may mourn the loss of future shared experiences in the family. Just as we as parents will have to cope with questions like “how many children do you have?”, our surviving children have to deal with the difficult question of how many siblings they have. With their sibling’s death, they may have lost the one person in the world who knew them better than anyone else. They may have confided in them, trusted them and been able to share thoughts with them more easily than with anyone else. Now death has robbed them of that. If rivalry or a personality clash meant that they argued, the surviving sibling may be left with regrets that they hadn’t been able to get past these squabbles and make peace. Our surviving adult children Losing a child of any age is devastating. The death of an adult child, who has lived their own life, has a circle of friends, and perhaps a job, spouse and children, brings particular issues for us as parents. Then, in the midst of our own terrible pain, we also have to witness the grief of our surviving children. We may struggle to know how best to support them when we too are in need of support. What has happened may bring us closer, but this is not always the case. There may have already been difficulties in our relationship which are now aggravated by the pain of bereavement. In this leaflet, we look at our relations with our surviving adult children following their sibling’s death. Everyone’s experience is different; each person is an individual, and the nature of our relationships will also be unique. We hope that no matter what your circumstances are, this leaflet will provide some ideas to support your relationships.