The Weight of Being a Brother’s Keeper

My sons were inseparable. They were so close that they even shared the same group of friends. If one of them showed up, you could be sure the other wasn’t far behind. People would joke that you never saw one without the other. And I would always tell them, “Be your brother’s keeper.” It was my way of teaching them to look out for one another in a world that wasn’t always kind. 

But when my middle son died, that phrase turned into a wound. Instead of comfort, it became guilt. My surviving son told me, “Mom, you always told me to watch out for my brothers and sisters. And the one time I left him, somebody killed him.” He has carried that burden into his forties, believing he failed.

I had to look him in the eyes and say, “That was never your burden to carry. God was sparing you. If you had been there, I might have been burying both of my children. God doesn’t make mistakes. It was his divine time.” I never meant for those words—be your brother’s keeper—to become chains. And I pray every day that God will lift that guilt from his heart.

Not long before his death, God sent warning signals. In April, my son called me frantic and said, “Mom, they just tried to kill him.” They had jumped out at his brother, and he pushed him away to survive. I drove four and a half hours to Minnesota because I knew something had to change. I told them, God sends warning signals. You have to stop. That fear and danger rattled us all.

On September 4, the phone rang. Dale was crying: “Mom—Danny’s dead.” That call changed everything. I remember arriving and seeing his body. I passed out. I screamed. That day is one I’m still working through.

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It doesn’t help that he and I are not as close as I would like. As a mother, it breaks me. I long for his voice. I want to know how he’s doing, what’s on his mind, how he’s navigating his own grief. But instead, I find myself on one side of a wall, knocking, while he stays on the other side, locked in his sorrow and guilt.

For a long time, I thought it was all my fault. I replayed my mistakes, my regrets, the choices I wish I could undo. I carried the guilt like it was mine alone. But through prayer and through counseling, I’ve had to learn something hard: I can’t carry his grief for him. I can’t make him come closer. I can’t force him to see me differently.

What I can do is grieve what’s missing, accept what I cannot change, and trust God with the rest. I keep praying that the wall between us will crumble. I keep holding space for reconciliation. But I also release the weight that was never mine to carry alone.

The Bible says God sets the lonely in families (Psalm 68:6). That brings me comfort, because even as I wait for healing with my son, God has surrounded me with people who remind me I am not forgotten.

If you’re reading this and you know the sting of being distant from someone you love, I want you to know you’re not alone. It’s okay to admit it hurts. It’s okay to grieve the gap. And it’s okay to trust God to hold what feels impossible to carry.

Because even when family feels like strangers, God’s love is steady. And he has a way of writing stories we could never imagine.

He saved me. And He keeps holding me as I wait for healing with my family.