Grieving for the Sibling You Lost: A Teen's Guide to Coping With Grief and Finding Meaning After Loss by Erica Goldblatt Hyatt

Author:Erica Goldblatt Hyatt [Goldblatt Hyatt, Erica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Nonfiction, Family, Social Issues, Depression & Mental Illness, Siblings, Death & Dying
ISBN: 9781626252516
Google: UrhrCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
Published: 2015-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Can You Relate to Zarrah?

Let’s take a look at a few specific aspects of Zarrah’s experience that you may relate to.

Zarrah felt like the community cared about her loss. Because Trey was a veteran, people in her community were saddened by his death. They reached out to her family and wanted to celebrate Trey too. And because Lyle had also died overseas, many people in the community were already familiar with this kind of loss. This helped Zarrah feel less isolated and alone in her grief. The newspaper called Trey a hero, and the family’s church arranged for many people to attend his burial. As a result, Zarrah felt supported by more people than just her family, who were all grieving in their own ways.

Ask yourself: Are you part of a community that you feel cares for you, your sibling, and your family? Have people reached out and offered practical help, like meals or rides to school, or just to talk? When someone dies in service or of an illness, people in the community are often more willing to help and provide support. Unfortunately, when people commit suicide or are murdered, people may be more judgmental and less likely to help out.

Zarrah didn’t have a lot of details about her brother’s death. Zarrah knew Trey’s Humvee hit a bomb and that he was killed instantly, so he didn’t suffer. Because she didn’t physically witness his death and heard about it secondhand, this may have made it easier for her to cope in healthier ways—in contrast to Tommy, in chapter 7, who saw his sister’s body being carried away after she was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Other factors may also have helped Zarrah cope, including her outgoing personality and her recent experience with Lyle’s death. In addition, she felt connected to Trey in many different ways, including through his son and in the letters he’d sent.

Ask yourself: Did you hear many details of your sibling’s death or witness it, or do you wish you had more information about it? Do you have an especially vivid imagination that’s made it hard for you to stop thinking about the death itself? Or, with time, have you been able to focus more on happier memories of your sibling? Was your sibling old enough for the two of you to have a relationship, or was he or she too little for you to really get to know? Do you feel that you have a personality that bounces back from hard events, or does it take you quite a while to feel better when bad things happen? Any of these factors can contribute to how you cope.

Zarrah searched for ways to create meaning from Trey’s death. Of course, Zarrah felt sad, confused, and lonely at times, but she also worked on finding meaning in Trey’s death. She was surrounded by people who cared about Trey, and all responded to his death in different ways: from Mary, who was too upset to attend Trey’s funeral; to

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