by Wendy Owen

Created on: December 16, 2008

The death of a sibling is one of the harshest things I have ever experienced. The reaction on the body and the mind and the soul when you hear the words "he's gone" can be devastating. There are no guidelines on how a person will take the news of losing someone that shares their blood, someone that you played with as child and grew up with and shared all your joys and all your fears with. There are no words of comfort that will make you feel any less pain. The pain does not ease with time like people tell you it will, you only over the years learn better ways of coping with the traumatic event that took the life of someone you loved so dearly.

As I sit here remembering the event and how it all unfolded I have a tear running down my face because the pain is too great to bare. My body shakes and my heart cracks once more and I just can not let my mind settle on the fact that he is gone to us and I will never see him again on this earth. I feel like I am alone in my pain and surly no one can understand the way it grabs at your heart and twists until you are sure it will just fall to pieces right there in your chest. I feel so much anger that I want to strike the nearest thing to me, I want to kick and I want to scream but I know deep down that it will not help because there is no help. There is no easing my heart.

I have spent a lot of time trying to outrun the pain. When my brothers wife and family came to our home to tell us that he had been killed I remember his wife going to my mother and her brother coming to me to tell me. He told me and I screamed, " Where the hell is my brother"! He said, "he's gone" and so I ran. I remember running in circles around the kitchen table trying to outrun the pain, around and around I went. I wanted to get away from him so I could get to my mother because she did not understand what was going on and all she could hear was me wailing and running.

Dear God the pain is unbearable even now. In three weeks it will have been ten years since the death of my beloved older brother who I looked up to and thought hung the moon. To me he was the greatest man on earth and when it came to me he was a force to be reckoned with because I was his baby sister and his friend. We always stuck together through thick and through thin and that is a rare gem to find in a relationship and it has lasted thirty six years on this earth but an eternity in our hearts because I still got your back big brother.

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