The biggest impact of losing my brother has been the pain it has caused my family. Being 8 years older than he was, I didn't have very many naturally occurring interactions with him. Not that the number of interactions has much effect on the importance of them. But it does increase the potential.
This is true for some of my sisters as well, yet his death had a much bigger impact on them. Why is that?
I am trying to imagine how I would feel if someone else in my life were to die. I live so much of my life alone in my thoughts and in my feelings. What would it feel like to have someone in my life who was so involved in my inner life that their absence left an actual sense of loss?
I have become so accustomed to loss, as each time my family moves to a new home I leave behind those I have learned to love in such a short time. Perhaps that love is not as meaningful as the love my sisters have for their lost brother. I rarely feel a deep pain at leaving someone behind. I do feel a deep pain at leaving everyone behind -- but it is not one specific person.
I can imagine the loss of a child or husband. When the kids are at school, or my husband is at work, my behavior is different than when they are around. I cook for them, do laundry for them. The pain of losing someone when they are young involves the question of why they died at that stage of their lives. With elderly people this aspect of their dying is less troublesome, but of course children and friends and grandchildren still feel pain at their loss.
What is the source of this pain? Is it because the pattern of behavior is altered? Or because the object of your love is absent? My inclination is that it is because the pattern of behavior is altered. I rejected the other (love is absent) because, for example, when I do not have communication with my loved ones, I still love them. They are absent, I still love, and there is discomfort that I cannot speak with them. But the discomfort is only because I am used to a certain pattern of behavior and that behavior has become disrupted.
