How can I support a family when their loved one is dying?

It's important to remember that people act abnormally in abnormal situations. Accompanying a family member through end of life is not a normal situation for a family. It's out of the ordinary in our in our everyday family lives. People are going to respond in ways that may not look to us like how we would normally expect them to respond or how we would like for them to respond. It's important to acknowledge that, especially amongst siblings, oftentimes existing patterns will amp up. 

They will also eventually amp down. If siblings are really close before a parent is dying or a parent dies, they will tend to really come together through that end of life experience. If they are still involved in rivalry or have rifts in the relationship, those rifts might widen during an end of life situation. Then it might take effort to repair afterwards if both are committed to doing so.