Coping with the terminal illness of a family member, especially a parent, is no easy feat for anyone to deal with. Each person grieves as uniquely as they are an individual, and very often, miscommunications can emerge from this, resulting in emotional clashes.

How would you handle disagreeing with the way your sibling grieved a parent?

In this story, a woman recently sought validation about her situation like this with her brother. Here’s what went down.

AITA for calling out my brother for writing something insensitive on our Mother’s Day card?

My brother (25) and I (24) both live at home and caretake for our mother who has ALS, which is a terminal illness.

Given she’s had the diagnosis for about a year now, the average timeframe she has left is 1-4 more years.

That’s an extremely rough situation.

We had a Mother’s Day card and I asked him to sign it.

When he handed me the card to sign it, I couldn’t believe what he wrote.

He said “Happy Mother’s Day! Hope to celebrate many more!”

He was likely being sincere.

I gave him a side eye and told him that was really tactless to write to someone with a disease that is terminal.

He responded by saying I was trying to start a fight, and that what he wrote was true- he did hope to celebrate more years with her.

I told him he was going to make her cry when she read that, but he brushed it off and told me to let it go.

Once she opened the card, she immediately started crying, just as I predicted she would.

There are likely a myriad of reasons for this.

Since her diagnosis, all holidays have made her teary eyed, but had already cried a few minutes before while opening gifts.

I really do suspect it was the “many more” years part that made her tear up, but I didn’t ask her specifically.

Again, there’s layers to this.

Later, I texted my best friend about it to see if I was overreacting.

My friend agreed it was insensitive, and when I told my brother that they agreed with me, he said I was just being “purposefully mean” and “trying to validate myself”.

So AITA then?

All people, even siblings, grieve very differently.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man whose celebratory post-grad school vacation is being ruined by his family’s insistence he’s being lazy.

Let’s see if the Reddit comments provided any wise reminders of that.

This person stood up for the brother.

Another person put her swiftly in her place.

Though a few provided some tough love.

Others showed some sympathy.

And someone else made a valid point.

There’s really no easy way around this. It’s an emotional time, and she could be reading way too much into her mother’s tears.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a young woman who struggles with her new reality after learning her adoption story was a lie.