Sudden death of my brother, 2 months after my father died of pancreatic cancer [View all]

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

My brother died suddenly on the day after Christmas. He was 62. It was an accident involving a scissors lift. I don’t know all of the details, but he was helping his son fit up a building he was planning to use for his batting instruction business in Philly. His brother was was also there, so both sons witnessed the fatal accident. A medevac helicopter was arranged, but then called off because my brother died before it could have reached him. An ambulance transported the body to the hospital.

My mom was with her daughter-in-law, when the call came that he’d been in an accident. By the time they reached the hospital, he was dead.

I am in shock. I can’t quite believe it’s true. I guess this is what they call denial. I just keep thinking it must be a bizarre nightmare. It was just two months and a day after my father died of pancreatic cancer. I don’t know how my mother is going to cope with this. And, of course, the trauma to his poor wife and sons.

This is complicated for me and my family relationships because my brother and I were still pretty much estranged and two of my three sisters were angry at me because of it. None of them can understand that his behavior affected me to the point where it triggered suicidal depression (Btw, I'm going to delete this post probably by tomorrow morning, because of sharing that personal fact, but please don't let that stop anyone from replying if you have anything to say.)

He claimed he wanted us to reconcile, but continued to make that impossible for me. Still, I’m glad I answered the email he sent me on Christmas Eve. It just said Merry Christmas and my reply was a digital Christmas card I’d made from an early photo of my parents decorating what might have been their first tree together.

The funeral was Wednesday. We received a text from the widow the night before telling my husband and I that we were not welcome at the funeral. She misquoted and misinterpreted something I'd written in an email from a few weeks ago to my brother and she said that it would be disrespectful for me to be there because my husband and I were not grieving.

I can assure you, that is not true.

One last wrinkle: I am an atheist, so it is also very uncomfortable for me to know how to react to the religious talk about this. In particular, my one sister told me that she believed God had to kill my brother so that we four sister could reconcile our differences. While I do envy people the comfort their faith brings them in times like this, I'm sorry, but that to me is one of the most insane things I've ever heard.

I know that my own grief is nothing compared to that of my brother's wife and sons, my mother, and my sisters who were close to him, so I feel guilty even talking about how hard this situation is for me.