When Survival Feels Like the Greater Loss: Grief and Guilt and “O’s In the Sky"
- Lee Erickson, MA, LPCC
- Aug 3
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 1
Grief rearranges our loyalties. When someone we love dies, particularly a sibling, we are not just mourning their absence—we are sometimes confronting the unshakable belief that we should have gone in their place.
That kind of guilt is cellular. It doesn’t present itself with logic but with a quiet relentlessness. It doesn’t ask your permission—it simply sits beside you, whispering false equations: They had more to live for. They were better loved. I’ve always been the one who was too much, or not enough. If one of us had to go... wasn’t it supposed to be me?
In my poem O’s In the Sky, I return to the ten minutes I spent alone with my brother in his hospital room, shortly before his death. In that still, unsupervised moment, I made a silent trade: Let me carry it instead. Let me go.
Of course, no one answered. Not God. Not the walls. Not the sparrows wheeling above my backyard days later, forming their hollow, disappearing O’s.
But I don’t write this post to solve something. I write it to say: If you've ever had that thought—it should have been me—you’re not broken. You’re human. Grief rewrites the rules of fairness, and you’re trying to rewrite the ending any way you can.
O’s In the Sky
by Lee Erickson, MA, LPCC
For a long time,
I thought it should have been
me—
who died instead
of my brother.
The 10 quiet minutes I had
alone with him in that dingy,
demoralizing hospital room,
I floated the idea
into the dim, indifferent air.
Maybe, just maybe.
He’s unconscious.
No machines—
my brother’s lone request,
aware they’d only extend the suffering—
his, and ours.
The top of his shirt,
spattered with blood.
His breathing, labored.
He’s off, through the gauzy curtain,
half here, half somewhere
he could no longer name.
Lost in contemplation.
Almost gone.
That’s when I made the deal.
Silently. Sitting by his bed.
Let his illness slip from him
into me, as deep as it wants—
no panic, no fear.
Just the swap.
Several days earlier,
we had that picnic. His plate was
bare despite our mother encouraging
him to eat, one bite of bratwurst,
a small spoonful of
pea salad with chunks of Velveeta
and “O” ring pasta.
His hands no longer worked—
swollen and soft, foreign to him.
Worthless fingers slick with dressing,
disconnected, unable to
pinch, flex—
or keep a grip.
I realized it was too late.
I should have tried earlier.
We should have changed places then,
I was more practiced
at facing the void.
Me, way more capable
of coping with pain,
more experience slogging up that hill—
I’ve been doing it unwillingly
most of my life.
I had no family to leave behind.
Only an elderly mother who—
if she’s going to lose a child,
why not lose
the one who was always too much,
and not enough,
at the same time.
The lonely one.
The only one,
who would die quietly,
virtuously,
if it meant saving
her favorite son.
People wouldn’t spend their time
mourning, wondering about
his wife who hated being alone,
his daughters,
whose paths were still being written.
But God wasn’t listening.
Probably off counting—
hairs on the head of
some child, half a world away,
racked with AIDS or,
the sparrows circling in giant
“O’s” around my backyard,
where I have set myself down,
at my dilapidated picnic table
spattered with ketchup and
baked beans gone cold,
losing my grip,
realizing my negotiating skills
are poor or God is deaf
and he doesn’t really care
who lives or dies in
his fallen creation,
extinction on the horizon.
Or why
we were even
created whole—
only to be
brutally,
terribly—
undone.
Maybe the guilt of surviving
is worse
than the act of
dying.
And another day dawns.
Grief Writing Prompts: For the One Who Stayed
1. The Bargain No One Heard: Think back to a moment when you would have traded places with someone you lost. What would you have taken from them? What would you have willingly given up? Write a letter to the person you lost that begins, If I could have taken it from you...
2. Surviving Out of Order: Sometimes grief doesn’t just feel painful—it feels wrong. Use this sentence starter: In the story I thought we were writing, I was supposed to... and see where it leads.
3. The World That Kept Going: Return to a specific scene where life continued—picnic tables, sparrows overhead, cold beans on a plate—despite your world having stopped. What small details stand out in your memory? What do they tell you about survival, and about your capacity to feel?
Disclaimer: The content shared here reflects my personal thoughts and professional insights, but it is not therapy. If you are struggling or in crisis, please call 911, go to your nearest emergency room, or dial 988 in the U.S. (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). If outside the U.S., please seek local emergency resources.
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