I lost my brother 19yrs ago. It must have taken a decade before I found I was in a 'good place' about it.
The depth of sadness I experienced cannot be described. Some days I just prayed for the strength to get through the day and find peace in sleep. Losing a sibling is a long journey to acceptance. I found I had to support my mother's emotions as well. This was hard and it created some distance between us for a while as mum became angry and I was the target. Mum sought professional help and our relationship found an even keel again. We became very close.. now my mum has recently gone. I feel she is with my brother. I am grateful he was on the other side to receive her. I used to experience weird dreams about my brother where he would visit me, we would talk like old times, I enjoyed his company in these dreams even acknowledging that he was dead while in the dream. Then the awful thing would happen, I would wake up.. in tears, and feeling desolate for I had been in such a happy place for a while
The dreams persisted for a few years then disappeared. UNTIL, six weeks before my mum passed away suddenly. I feel he was there to let me know that time was short with mum and that he would be there for her at the end. Now I no longer have dreams about either of them. I feel alone without my dreams but perhaps they are together and happy.
Losing my sibling has made losing mum hard. I have had to do everything on my own. I have no cousins or other relatives beside a daughter (who leads her own life). I also don't think it is right to burden my daughter and her husband with my grief. Now I doubly miss them and I kind of think when I go it will be a bit of a blessing. I am tired of missing my family. I have no-one to reminisce about what life was like when we were kids. There is no-one left who grew up with me. No-one to share the past. I have a husband who I married ten years ago, but he didn't know my brother or me when I was a kid.
You asked how long it would take for the pain to lessen... it is it's own master. The pain is part of grief. If we don't experience the pain of grief we are not moving through grief. We have to reshuffle our life, our thinking and the way we regard our family position. It is a long process and takes time. I think that is why people say time heals. It doesn't heal at all... it gives us time to regroup and find a way to make life bearable again. It gives us time to learn how to live with the gaping wound we have in our hearts.
I think about my brother and mother every day. I miss them every day but I am learning to live with this and as I do I find I am becoming used to the pain and it becomes bearable. After it becomes bearable I can then find ways to enjoy the precious gift of life that I still have. We are here for such a short time we need to find a way to incorporate our grief into our lives, not let it cripple us.. to do that would be to waste our precious time on this earth. I have learnt to live through the grief, knowing that it is possible to do so.. to be sooo sad one minute, laughing the next at something current. We are resilient aren't we.
I hope you find your journey bearable. It teaches us something, lots of things too. Awful way to learn isn't it.