My Brother Died When I Was 13 Years Old

A Personal Perspective: What I wish my parents had known about grief.

Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

Key points

• Grief is a part of life for many parents.
• Parents are often underprepared and unequipped to parent through grief.
• I am sharing my story of grief as a child to help parents understand what a child thinks when tragedy strikes.

This post is Part 1 of a series.

The Phone Call

It was during my summer break that I remember the phone ringing in the morning. I watched my parents rush out of the house to go to the hospital. For months, they had been making these trips, but something about this day felt different. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as my siblings and I sat around and waited for my parents to come home. My older siblings moved with a heaviness, their voices low and muted. Even my younger siblings, usually full of energy, seemed to sense that something was wrong. The tension in the room was thick, suffocating, and I didn’t know how to process the growing unease in my chest.

Determined to get answers, I approached my older siblings, but they dodged my questions, offering no explanations. So, I waited. The phone rang again and one of my older siblings answered. Their reaction was immediate. I watched their shoulders slump and their face contort with grief. In that moment, I knew. Though I couldn’t put it into words, I knew. Our brother, just 21 years old, was gone. My parents were calling to tell us he had passed.

Confusion

It was the first time I had encountered death so close to home, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. We were a family of 13—my parents, my 10 siblings, and me—and now one of us was gone. Each of my siblings reacted differently: some screamed, others sobbed, and a few clung to a stoic resolve to stay strong. But, for me, time slowed to a crawl. I didn’t cry or shout. I didn’t know how to comprehend what was happening. I went outside and looked up into the sky. I waited for my parents to come back. They would clear this up. This could not be real. My brother would come back home, and he would be healed from his illness and life would continue as I knew it.

I waited for what felt like an eternity. When my parents finally arrived, my heart sank. My mother was overwhelmed with grief, and my father’s sole focus was on comforting her. I could feel my eyes pleading for an explanation, for anything to make this right, but I couldn’t bring myself to intrude on their sorrow. So, I stayed outside, unwilling to step back into the house, into a reality I wasn’t ready to accept.

I Needed My Mother

I don’t remember how long I stayed out there or how I eventually made it back inside. Everything became a blur as the days moved forward. People began visiting our home, offering condolences, but their presence only added to the weight of the loss. My mother was consumed by her sorrow. We visited my brother’s body, preparing for the funeral, but I still couldn’t bring myself to fully grasp the truth. I had visions of him being raised from the dead and even prayed for it often. I needed my mother but felt the need to protect her at the same time. Sleep came easy, but was filled with nightmares, each morning bringing the cruel reminder that they weren’t just dreams.

There was a constant parade of people checking on me and my family, which felt overwhelming. I didn’t know how to behave, how to express my grief in front of others. I cried, I was angry, and then I was numb, just wanting to forget. The funeral made things feel final, yet the hope that somehow he would still come back was there. After the funeral, a woman from our church took me and my little sister to Stone Mountain to do something fun. I was so sad, but grateful for another opportunity to get away from the pain that seemed to be just under the surface for some of my siblings and my father or bubbling over openly for the rest of my family.

A New Normal?

Eventually, a new normal developed, though it didn’t feel normal at all. We never talked about my brother’s death, and I pushed the grief aside. School started a month later, and I slipped back into a routine, choosing to forget and move on. My mother wasn’t the same for a long time, but we didn’t discuss it. Talking about my brother’s death felt forbidden, so we just kept going. I didn’t know how to grieve, so I didn’t.

Confronted by Grief

It was not until two years later that I was sitting in geometry class at school when grief grabbed me and would not let me go. I ran from the classroom into the restroom and began crying uncontrollably. I tried to stop, but my body seemed to be running the show. I remember thinking that I shouldn’t be doing this, but I simply could not stop. Eventually, a classmate came to check on me, and I could not speak for a bit, but then I explained my sadness over my brother’s death. She assumed it had just happened, but it hadn’t. Still, she stayed with me, offering a quiet comfort in my moment of vulnerability.

That day, grief found me. But, even then, I didn’t want to burden my family, so I kept it inside. It took years, and the support of a loving spouse, for me to realize that I needed to grieve. We all did. I wish my parents had known how much I felt responsible for them, how my desire to protect them kept me from healing. Now, as a professional, I can see what we all needed. Families deserve support, not just when life is going well, but when pain strikes. Grief takes many forms, and we all deserve to have it acknowledged and addressed.