Anticipatory grief doesn’t always look like sitting at a bedside. Sometimes it looks like a phone call with test results, and a feeling you’re not proud of. This is also a story about caregiver guilt — the kind that shows up not because of what you did, but because of what you couldn’t give.
My older sister, my younger brother, and I were all tested to see who could be the bone marrow donor. There’s a strange kind of waiting that comes with that — wanting to be useful, wanting to be the one who could fix this, while also quietly hoping you won’t have to be.
My sister was the match.
I remember exactly what I felt when we found out, and it wasn’t one thing. It wasn’t even a few things, one after another. It was all of it, all at once, stacked on top of itself so fast I couldn’t separate one feeling from the next.
There was jealousy — that it was her, not me, who got to be the one who could save the day. There was relief, just as real, just as immediate, that it wasn’t me. There was fear for her, for what the procedure would actually involve and whether she’d be okay. Would it even work? There was guilt for the jealousy, and then shame on top of that for the relief. There was a strange kind of awe watching her say yes without hesitating the way I might have. There was helplessness, because once she was the match, there was nothing left for me to offer except show up — and even that felt like it wasn’t enough. Underneath all of it was something quieter: love for her, complicated and aching, sitting right next to the part of me that was glad I didn’t have to find out if I’d have been as brave.
It feels ugly written down, contradictory in a way that doesn’t resolve itself. But it’s true, and I think a lot of people who’ve stood in that particular spot — loving someone and being spared at the same time — know exactly what I mean.
What came after was harder to admit. My sister went through the donation process, and I wasn’t as present for her through it as I wish I had been. At the time, I told myself I was maxed out — and I was. Past tired, into a kind of empty I didn’t have a name for yet. I could barely function for myself, let alone show up fully for someone else going through something that hard. There was loneliness in that too, going through my own version of this — fear, helplessness, guilt, all of it — while the attention, rightly, was on her and on the person who was sick. No one was checking in on what I was carrying, and some days I wasn’t sure I could have explained it even if they had. But knowing all of that doesn’t fully take away the guilt I still carry about it. I look back now and wonder if I could have done more, even just a little more, even from wherever I was.
This is something nobody prepares you for in a family crisis — that everyone is grieving and frightened and depleted at the same time, and there often isn’t enough of any of you left over to fully show up for each other the way you want to. You’re not just worried about the person who’s sick. You’re watching your siblings carry weight too, and sometimes you’re too underwater to reach out and help carry it.
I don’t think there’s a clean resolution to this one. I’m not going to tell you I made peace with it in some tidy way. What I can tell you is that being maxed out doesn’t make you a bad sister, a bad daughter, a bad caregiver. It makes you human, in a situation that asked more of everyone than any one person had to give.
If you’ve been the sibling who felt relief it wasn’t you, or the one who couldn’t show up the way you wanted to for someone you love — you’re not alone in that, and it doesn’t make you the villain of your own story. Caregiver guilt isn’t just about what you did. Sometimes it’s about what you didn’t have left to give.
If this is something you’re still carrying, I’d be honored to help you work through it.
Sherri Webster, LCSW, C-SWHC specializes in grief, chronic illness, and caregiver support. [Schedule a consultation] to talk about what you’re carrying.
