YOUNG PEOPLE ASK -What If My Sibling Has Committed Suicide?

"If Only . . ."

The suicide of a brother or sister can leave you racked with guilt. 'If only I had done things differently, my sibling would still be alive,' you might tell yourself. It may seem that there's evidence to support that thought.  Christ who was 21 when his 18-year-old brother took his life believed that.  "I was the last person to speak to my brother," he says, so I thought that I should have known that something was up.  I reasoned that if only I had been more approachable, he might have opened up and talked to me."

The despair Christ felt was intensified by the fact that he and his brother  had had a strained relationship.  "The note he left  said that I could have been a better brother," Christ recalls with great pain.  "Even though I know he wasn't well, that thought continues to plague me."  Often, such guilt if further fueled by memories of bitter words that were exchanged with a sibling before he or she died.  "Many bereaved siblings have told me that the guilt they felt over a fight they had months or even years ago continues to torment them,"  Dr. White, quoted earlier, told Awake! 

If you suffer from guilt over a sibling's suicide, ask yourself this,  'What human is granted full control over the actions of another human?' Says Karen. "The suffering that the person was trying escape-and the horrible way that he or she ended it-were not yours to prevent."

But what if you cannot seem to forget insensitive or harsh remarks you once made to your sibling?  The Bible can help you to put things in perspective.  It states:  "We all stumble many times. If anyone does not stumble in word, this one is a perfect man."  (James 3:2; Psalm 130:3)  Really, dwelling on incidents in which you feel you spoke to or treated your sibling harshly will only intensify your grief.  Painful as those memories may be, the fact that remains that you did not cause your sibling to die. 

Next time: YOUNG PEOPLE ASK - What If My Sibling Has Committed Suicide?/Coping With Grief

From the Awake! magazine