Claire Kuhnell

My brother Benoit died on September 26^th, 1985. Tragically, he died by suicide, at only 17. My brother Francois was 16 and I was 12. His death was totally unexpected, and shattered our family: we had no idea how to deal with the pain of losing him, so we didn’t talk about him or his death.  I wish we had, as grieving together as a family would have made our journey a lot easier…

Siblings often suffer differently in that their grief is not always recognised as being as significant as their parent’s grief or if an adult sibling, as significant as the grief the immediate family of the sibling is feeling. Roles changes when your sibling dies. Mine changed in that I felt responsible for my parents’ happiness, so I never allowed myself to be comforted by my parents. I was instead going to be the one who brings them comfort by smiling, by showing that I was coping, by being “the strong one”.  That delayed my grief work, and it’s not until I moved to Australia as a young adult that I was able to start dealing with this loss.

I became a volunteer for the Compassionate Friends a couple of years after I first attended the Survivors of Suicide Support Group in Glen Waverley, and more recently again, by running the Siblings Group in Canterbury with the precious help of Andrew. I am also completing a bachelor of counselling, hoping to become a grief counsellor: helping others has given some kind of meaning to my loss, and I don’t think I would have chosen this path if I had not known this incredible pain of losing someone so close and so tragically.

My latest wish is to renew the continuing bond with my brother Benoit somehow. In trying to find some sort of connection with my brother, I acknowledge that a relationship does not necessarily end with death: it is just changed.