When a youngster dies suddenly it is a dreadful thing because we simply don’t expect healthy, vibrant young people to die.
It seems unthinkable that a life full of hope and promise can be cut short in seconds.
The sorrow and shock of that accident will have indelibly changed the lives of so many: those who watched them grow from tiny tots into vibrant young adults; their close friends; their varsity mates; and especially their parents and brothers and sisters left behind to try to make sense of the horror of it.
Researcher William Worden says grief reactions are usually more complicated when a young person dies and it is important to be aware of the factors that can make it very difficult to make sense of the loss.
He says:
* When the death is unexpected, grief can be intense and overwhelming.
* Proximity also makes a difference: for some mourners, the death can seem more unreal if they were far away from where it happened.
* While experiencing a violent death increases trauma reactions, complex grief is exacerbated when those left behind have to deal with multiple losses that happen all at once or soon after each other.
* Ambiguous death, where initially there is uncertainty over whether the loved one is dead because there is conflicting information about what really happened or no body has been recovered, or stigmatised deaths such as those resulting from suicide, HIV and Aids or high risk behaviour.
* The perceived preventability of death has a big effect on the grieving process.
Teenage deaths frequently involve most or many of the dimensions described above, so it is not surprising then that we tend to feel powerless to help.
As a mother who has walked this road, I urge you as friends, families and educational institutions to stay involved and provide support – it can make an enormous difference to those whose lives have been turned upside down.
Here are some pointers for those who want to offer support but feel unsure of what to do.
It is important to understand that most attention will be focused on the parents of the young person who died. The grief of parents is so deep and profound that to those around them it seems they have become obsessed with their child who died.
They will often express the desire to die so that they can be with their child and lose interest in everything around them.
This has a domino effect on the entire family structure, and surviving brothers and sisters who are struggling with their own sorrow and confusion often feel as if they have been forgotten.
For siblings it is a triple loss: the loss of their brother or sister; the loss of a future where they expected to grow old with them; and the loss of their familiar home environment and the parents they used to know because no parent is ever the same afterwards.
Surviving brothers and sisters grieve very differently from their parents and they can feel misunderstood and alone for a long time.
Yet the widely-held notions that we “get closure” and “get over it” mean that brothers and sisters are often expected to resume their lives, go to school, take their exams and “get back to normal” within a couple of weeks or months.
Remember that surviving siblings who sit in your classroom or come to your home are often living under a cloud of chronic sorrow.
They can fear that their parents are going to split up, that there may be less money for things they had hoped to do, and they will often feel anxious about the future.
Their carefree youth has been snatched away and they feel enormous pressure to fill the gaping hole in their family.
This can make them overly-responsible, assuming roles that were previously performed by their sibling who died or by their parents, but they are also just as likely to express their anger and confusion through high-risk behaviour, bunking, not caring about their school work and losing interest in their plans for after school.
Grieving teenagers usually don’t want to feel different and be singled out from their peers, but there are many practical ways in which schools can support bereaved families:
* Don’t let the way a person died influence the way you react to grieving friends and siblings. No matter how someone dies, the last thing mourners need is to feel that their grief is not validated because there is a sense of stigma around the death or the feeling that it could have and should have been prevented.
Be careful not to let your discussions lapse into gossip. It often gets back to the family and is enormously hurtful. Focus less on the mode of death and concentrate on finding ways to honour the young life sadly taken too soon.
* Be sensitive and compassionate in your dealings with the family, but don’t stay away. Go and visit. You won’t have to say much. Just express your sorrow and share your memories.
Write a letter, make a CD of photographs and video you have of their child, take meals and do other practical things.
Don’t feel that you should keep your teenage children away from the parents. They don’t begrudge you having your child – all they want is to have their own child back.
Having young people filling their garden, playing music and talking about their child helps them to know how important their child was and will always be to those in the community.
* Many teenagers will be reluctant to see professional counsellors, but they definitely need ways to express their grief and try to make their loss meaningful.
If the teenager who died was part of the student body, colleges and schools can help by planning memorialisation activities such as holding a tribute event, planting a tree, encouraging young people to express themselves through activities such as dance, rap, art and writing and cyber-mourning on Facebook and other sites.
In the beginning there will be a huge outpouring of grief. Over time it becomes less intense with less frequent triggers, but young people in today’s society (irrespective of their culture and faith background) normally display a sense of continuing connection with their friend or sibling who died and they will want to return to virtual and physical sites where their loved one is remembered and honoured.
We created a virtual memorial site for our son Mark, and for the past six years his website has consistently had 1 000 hits a month because it is a place where those who miss him can come and read, look at his pictures and videos and listen to his voice.
* It is essential that all staff at a school know about the bereavement so they can respond sensitively. Often teenagers have two sets of parents. If parents are divorced, obtain the names and details of both families and include all the children, step and biological.
If surviving siblings are members of your student body, it is very important that they be mentioned when the death is announced.
* Parents will want everything that belonged to their child. One of the most precious encounters we had was when our son’s English teacher came to our home and brought us his essays and shared his memories of our son.
School heads should ensure that teachers collect everything they can that was produced by the child who died and offer parents the opportunity to privately open their child’s locker and take their things personally rather than have the school carelessly send the contents home in a plastic bag.
*l Teenagers often feel more comfortable expressing their feelings to their close friends but most will welcome the opportunity to talk privately to a trusted teacher who shows sympathy and assures them that the school would like to support them through their bereavement.
Once the bereaved pupil resumes school activities, it is helpful to give them a sense of structure by meeting them regularly to find out if they need extra tutoring or help with exams and to encourage them to share other problems they are experiencing while being careful not to invade their privacy.
Close friends and boyfriends or girlfriends should also be flagged and given support.
One of the key “hurts” that bereaved teenage friends and siblings recall is the feeling that few people, if any, acknowledged their loss.
* Monitoring of affected pupils is not a short-term thing.
While most young people are remarkably resilient, grief will be triggered afresh at certain times, like the day the matric results come out and their classmate is not there to celebrate with them, or around their birthday and the anniversary of the death.
Grief is a process, and as time passes young people will feel and think about the death differently and struggle with new questions and events that cause them distress.
For a community life goes on. For the family left behind, grief can last a lifetime and one can never be too kind as they try to rebuild their lives.
Lesley’s Research
Lesley’s son Mark Schroeder was a matric pupil in Durban when he died in a plane crash.
His death motivated Lesley to complete a degree in psychology and she is busy with her Master’s degree at Stellenbosch University, where her thesis will focus on teenage sibling grief.
The aim is to investigate how surviving siblings perceived the role of their school community in providing support after the unexpected death of their brother or sister.
Lesley would like to hear from siblings who were aged from 13 to 19 and still at school when they lost a brother or sister suddenly through illness, accident, suicide or crime at any time since October 2009.
Bereaved siblings who would like to participate in the research can contact her on [email protected]
For more info, visit www.leftbehind.co.za - The Mercury