Lessons learned after my sister’s untimely death

It was a Saturday when I told my kids that my sister was going to die. It was a surreal experience. One that I’ll never forget. It was also the start of some of the most difficult parenting I’ve ever had to do. You see, my 29-year-old sister, Susannah, died less than two weeks after that conversation. After an 18-month battle with metastatic breast cancer, it was over.

In the midst of working through all of these emotions with my family, we learned some valuable lessons. This experience has taught my children how to manage loss and heartache while still moving forward. These guidelines are tools to help children learn the skills necessary to cope with the loss of a loved one.

Tell your kids what’s happening, but do it at their level. Explain what you know and what you don’t know at the most basic level, then ask if they have questions. Follow their lead with what to tell them. Find out what they’re thinking by listening to their questions. Try not to impart your feelings on them or assume that they’ve made a leap.

With my sister, I understood that anyone could die quickly. I was afraid to scare my children. Neither of them made this same leap. We made a point to separate the concepts of being sick, having cancer and having terminal cancer. We dealt with the realities and worked to make the most of what time we had by spending it together. We started there and listened for any bigger worries the kids might have had.

Show how you work through emotions. Even after my years of academic, professional, and personal experience dealing with emotions, I was concealing my feelings at first which was exhausting. Show your kids how you can laugh, cry, and be angry all at the same time. If you hide your emotions, your kids will never learn how to heal. They’ll never learn how to cope and manage strong, mixed feelings.

Your kids will have reactions which are normal — they may scream, kick, get quiet or whine. Continue to support them and try not to take it personally. Teach them not to be afraid of emotion, but instead to manage it, work with it, and turn it into something productive. In our case, we chose to focus on raising money for St. Jude in my sister’s honor. That focused our emotion in a positive way and gave it an outlet.

Reach out for support. In my case, I had good friends to help take care of my children as I took a few days to grieve. I told my kids that I loved them, but I needed some time to feel better. We all went away together, which relieved my burden of cooking, cleaning, and managing behavior. It gave me the space to find the emotional energy I needed to be able to get back to raising my kids. It also modeled for my kids how to take care of your own emotional health and move forward.

Teach your kids how to remember. Talk about life. Keep the happy memories alive, they’ll eventually replace the sad ones. Remembering is a way to channel the emotion and use it positively and productively.

These tips hold true for kids of all ages. They key is to keep the lines of communication open. Model how to talk and be there when they need to talk. Don’t force it, but don’t be scared of it. Stay honest, but keep it simple. And above all else, listen and help your child work through their feelings.

Susannah was fierce, sassy, opinionated, pushy, and loyal. We often laugh about what Aunt Nanna, as my kids called her, would say or what she would have done, and we hold each other tight. We’ve learned to stop wasting time and have started doing the things we always thought of doing or saying the things we hesitated to say.

I remember asking my son how he was feeling shortly after my sister passed. He said, in a childlike voice with funny “r’s” and twisted “l’s, “I’m a little sad and a little happy. I’m sad that Aunt Nanna died, but I’m happy when I remember her. I’m just trying not to think about the dying part and think about the living part.” Well said my little man. That’s how you celebrate life, and that’s what I’m hoping to teach my children about coping.

Sarah Levin Allen, Ph.D., CBIS is a pediatric neuropsychologist and executive director of the Brain Behavior Bridge. To hear more about her experience, listen to her interview with Kathy Romano on BEN FM.