Totally Frozen....Can't Compartmentalize

Hi Everyone. I'm Sarah and I'm 50 years old. I have one younger brother Adam who's 46. Last year, Sept 2024, my brother's only child, my 16 year old nephew Gage, was taking a shortcut to school and was hit by a train and killed. My brother was a single Dad. I cannot even describe the shock of this loss to our family. I live in Saskatchewan with my two adult kids, and my father lives out here. My mom and my brother and Gage are in Ontario which is over 3000km away. Dad and i booked flights and went there to help my brother with the arrangements, and then came home to start grieving, terrified for my brother, and my Mom who felt like she lost a son because she was so close with Gage. Christmas 2024 was awful. We all basically pretended it didn't exist! Family gathered here, family gathered there and we all chatted together via facetime. On Boxing Day, I got a call from my Dad that I couldn't even believe was real. My cousin, only 38 years old, dropped dead of Cardiac Arrest, with absolutely zero explanation (at the time....we have since found out his potassium levels were out of whack due to drinking too many energy drinks on the job as a roofer....still crazy....but at least we have some kind of answer). I was frozen. What do I do? Can I even deal with going back there for another funeral? Ryan, my cousin who died, was ALSO a single father to 12 year old Ryan Jr., who now is the LAST male in our family line. RJ just lost his Dad, on boxing day, after just burying his big cousin Gage. We were the type of family that did everything together. We had a family band. Gage played guitar. Ryan was the drummer. Both wiped out. SO STUPID and SO UNFAIR. So there's my poor Dad, at 70 years old, standing with his brother on one side burying his son, and then with his son on the other side who just buried his. I didn't go. I COULDN'T go. I was absolutely paralyzed. My brother went. He stood by my Uncle and helped him deal with it. Both dads who lost their boys are the quiet ones in the family. The ones who didn't share their feelings even before the losses so of course we are all terribly concerned about them. I can't compartmentalize. If I think of Gage I think of Ryan and vice versa. I don't know if this is good or bad. Does anyone out there have any advice for me for myself and how I can help my family? We are all just out of our minds with grief. It's coming up on one year since losing Ryan and we just had the one year without Gage. I am gutted.

 

I am so sorry to hear of your devastating losses. This must be overwhelming to your family.
When we lost our son to suicide, I called Compassionate Friends, a group for people who have lost a child. I asked the man I spoke with how he had helped his wife and how she had helped him. He said they didn't. They were both so devastated that neither one was a help to the other.
My husband would not talk about what happened and he said he couldn't stand to see me cry, so I tried to deal with the grief the best I could and wholly depended on God to come through for me, and He did.
So you see we are only human and we can only help each other so much. We can be kind and thoughtful and considerate, but for any real help each person can rely on God. The scriptures say Jesus is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Jesus says: "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life." This doesn’t mean God literally gives you a new family member— it means He surrounds you with spiritual family, support, and relationships that fill the void of what was lost.
It is so hard to be separated from someone we love so much, but as believers in Jesus Christ we have hope. And the hope to see them again one day.