COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – It's 2005, and Adam Turner is performing at the Springdale Elementary School Talent Show. He chose to sing a Tim McGraw song. It's "Live Like You Were Dying."
"Adam knew where he was going," said his sister, Tiffanie Turner. "It was just hard for us to accept that he was."
Seven months later, Adam Turner died from brain cancer after a prolonged period where it seemed like he was going to make it.
"He was better," said Tiffanie. "Then all the sudden the cancer came back and it came back three times this time."
Tiffanie was 16 years old when she lost her baby brother.
"My feelings for him are never gonna change," said Tiffanie. "He still means the world to me. I still get upset about it. I guess I've just had to come to terms with it."
After the flowers wilted and the friends went away, Tiffanie started the grieving process.
Tiffanie is a lot like others who have lost loved ones, but some of them never finish the process of grieving. That's where Linda Gill comes in.
After years as a nurse who watched children die, Gill became a grief counselor. She runs "Joy in the Mourning" support groups – emphasis on the "mourning" part.
"The beginning is the shock time when they have the most support, but when they really start hurting bad is when a lot of that support has disappeared because everyone's life has gone on," said Gill.
Gill says everyone is different when it comes to grieving as some don't want to talk. Whether it's a counselor, a journal, or just finding someone who's had a similar loss, to start to heal you have to do something.
And that's what helped Tiffanie get over Adam's death.
"I think keeping your family close and your friends and talking about it helped me really move on, just having people there for you," said Tiffanie.
But it's not an easy process. Gill says it takes a lot more than just talking about the loss to learn to deal with it.
"If you do meaningful work through the maze, trial and error, you do come back out to the sunshine," said Gill.
Four weeks ago would have been Adam's 13th birthday. But that day turned into something much different.
Tiffanie felt a pain she had been anticipating for 9 months. "I went into labor on January 18 and it was later that night, I knew he was coming on Adam's birthday," she said.
The baby boy is Tiffanie's first born. She says she wouldn't be surprised if he likes to sing like Adam did.
"I think having him on Adam's birthday was his way of saying, ‘It's okay. I've given you a gift. You don't have to grieve anymore,'" said Tiffanie.
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