Q: Our unusually sensitive 21-year-old nephew is having a hard time coping with the accidental death of his 23-year-old sister.
The siblings were living in different provinces at the time of her death and he had nothing to do with the accident, but he is still ridden with guilt. How can we help him overcome this?
A: It might help to understand that when someone is tormented with grief, they often fall into the despair of guilt. In fact, guilt is often what grieving is all about.
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However, it is not necessarily the same guilt that you might experience when you have been caught being inappropriate, such as raiding the cookie jar when Mom is not looking.
It could be something different. He might be struggling because he does not believe that he was as good a brother as he could have been to his sister. Remember, this is a sensitive and caring young man. Was he expecting too much for himself when he and his sister were together?
He could also be struggling because he does not understand the process grief must follow. Grief is like waves on the ocean. It flows in, overwhelms you and slides back out again. Some people do not understand this. They think if they are not feeling bad 100 percent of the time, they are being unfaithful to the person who has died. Does that fit with the younger brother? Or does he just think that the whole thing is unfair? Why did it have to be her who died? Why couldn’t it be him?
I hope the next time you spend time with her younger brother, you will not waste a lot of time trying to talk him out of feeling guilty. Don’t talk. Just listen.
Listen for what might be the kind of guilt he is enduring. When you understand his own moment of guilt, you can then accept it without trying to discredit it.
The more you accept his guilt and what it means to him, the more you accept him as a person. The more you accept him as a person, the greater are your chances of helping him get through what is clearly the most difficult time he has so far had in his personal journey.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer.com.
