Hierarchy of Grief
Losing an adult sibling
We rarely speak about the death of an adult sibling. This was made clear while I was online researching articles on how I can comfort my mother whose youngest brother recently passed away and was unable to attend his funeral due to COVID-19 global travel restrictions. It was during this relief exploration that I discovered my own journey with grief.
What’s happening to my family?
My older brother, known as kuya in the Tagalog language of the Philippines, passed away over two years ago. From the quivering voice of my younger brother was how I received the news that my kuya was pronounced dead just an hour earlier. I pictured the tears streaming down my younger brother’s face as he uttered the most heart wrenching words. I could hardly believe it was possible. Kuya had recently ‘liked’ a simple message of hope I casually posted online the evening before and now he was gone. Shock was immediately followed by tears of my own. Up until that moment my nuclear family and his own family were intact.
Psychology experts say there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. My experience with grief was not so neat, tidy, and easy to categorize. As a matter of fact, I found that it was very complicated and difficult to sort. There is no one image that we can correctly identify with grief. The few articles or one-word descriptions I found on how to deal with losing an adult sibling were mostly unrelatable. I was not a “forgotten” mourner where everyone but myself was getting the attention. Nor did I feel like my grief was “overshadowed” by others closer to my brother, namely his wife and kids. I did give some credence to a sense of “suppressing” grief only in that it helped explain my natural inclinations which I term the hierarchy of grief.
What’s the hierarchy of grief?
In my faith we believe that couples wed in our temples are sealed in matrimony for time and all eternity. A forever marriage. A forever family. Relationships to each other are made more clear. There is a structure set in place to properly organize those in your life by importance. For my brother it is his wife and children first. Second, his parents. Then, it is his siblings.
Understanding there is a hierarchy of grief highlighted two important lessons I needed to learn about losing an adult sibling.
One, this wasn’t about me. The pain of losing my kuya was felt more keenly by those closest to receiving his love and attention. My kuya’s wife lost her husband and eternal companion. My nieces and nephew lost a hero and father they adored and admired. They faced their most devastating loss and their world would never be the same.
My mom and dad lost a son they unconditionally loved. They suffered the unthinkable agony of outliving their child. They suffer still.
My younger brother and I would no longer have our first best friend and idol with us on life’s journey. We lost someone who always paved the way by experiencing the first of life’s important benchmarks in our family like leaving home for college, serving a church volunteer mission, getting married, and then having children of our own.
Together as a family we graciously welcomed all those who attended the wake and funeral. My sister-in-law received multiple offers of help in her new unwanted role as a widow, single parent, and host to a reception she never planned to hold. There was an endless list of things to do. My job was to make myself available so she can accomplish her duties but not get in her way. Focusing on these tasks was a welcome distraction for me. I do not know how helpful I was but I did not want to be a burden.
Whether it was compassion or compartmentalization or both, I did not really think at all of my loss. Everyone was suffering and I found solace in simply easing their pain. Why does this matter? It matters because it was order amidst the chaos. I immediately knew my place was to help those around me.
Second, this was about his impact on others outside of my family. My kuya was loved. He was the quintessential people person. His popularity was made evident by his funeral packed with mourners from all over the US and a few from other countries. His massive influence was felt even from his humble little perch in Eagle Mountain, Utah.
His kindness extended to those he befriended in the neighborhood, supervised at work, and served along with in his church obligations whether as a young missionary or a priesthood leader at the end of his life. The countless heartwarming stories I was told and am continuously hearing of the tender, thoughtful, and timely texts he sent or calls he made to people when it seemed no one else cared for them. He supported their decisions and circumstances with no judgment. The one person who validated their existence when they were at their lowest was no longer alive. They were also suffering at his passing. Losing him partly signified that they would no longer be the complete and unfiltered person they were when in his presence. Many people travelled miles to attend his funeral so it was the least I could do to make them feel like they were heard and seen. Maybe I was subconsciously serving as his proxy even for only one day. Consoling their grief was my way of making room for all the people who loved my older brother and to let that love fill the room.
I took comfort in comforting everyone else. It still felt more organic to prioritize how I could help others than to address my pain. Holding back gave way to seeing the bigger picture of losing an adult sibling. I did not agree with multiple articles noting that no one person’s grief is more important than others. My experience would not let me. I knew that my sister-in-law and her kids felt the sting of death more acutely than I and they did so in ways they could not properly articulate which makes the pain even more unbearable. So yes, their grief was more severe.
What’s next for us all?
The loss of an adult sibling is especially unique because of years of shared experiences and memories. This horizontal relationship is grounding and serves as a reminder of your roots and foundation but the hierarchy of grief can put things in perspective and confirms that proximity in relationships matters, especially when the loss is fresh and new.
It was around the one-year anniversary of my kuya’s passing that my aching heart finally surpassed my rational mind.
In 2020, I was finally ready to grieve and I was not alone. The world was grieving with me due to COVID-19. Though this global pandemic ushered in confusion and uncertainty, the lockdown also launched my journey with mourning and, while on it, discovering the hierarchy of grief. I can add my thoughts to that dialogue of losing an adult sibling, my kuya, because I now know my place. There may be an occasion where you don’t know where you stand in relation to the deceased adult sibling, especially compared to the others in their life. Some may not relate to this more structural approach while others might finally feel validated. There is no one correct way to grieve. This was my way to mourn. This was my journey with grief.
