Perhaps you’re like me, and have experienced much loss in the first decades of life. The first person who died that shattered my naïveté wasn’t a grandparent or even a parent. It was my brother, who was 10 years older than me. Friends and even lovers will come and go, but once you are a sibling, you are always a sibling.
His death affected our entire family in a very deep way. He was the third born of my parents, and lived a very troubled life for some reason. Our parents weren’t abusive or unkind in any obvious way. They weren’t an ideal example of unity, but they stayed together. They married out of necessity, and I think maybe resented that for the rest of their lives for that very reason. It was never talked about, though people of that generation didn’t communicate or speak about such things so, why did he end up so troubled, in and out of Juvie and jail cells and on addictive substances? I really have no idea. His murder should have not been such a surprise, given his checkered past; nonetheless, his passing cast a dark cloud over the family that was like a chronic disease. Needless to say, given our families inability to deal with emotions and communicate, asking for help or therapy would have been laughable. This is one reason why, when I find books and articles now about sibling loss and the hidden, sometimes silent grief we share, I am happy to share with fellow grievers.
Although the passing of my own brother was 37 years ago, reading “Always A Sibling,” by Annie Sklaver Orenstein, helped me find a connection with other siblings I didn’t realize I needed. We are often overlooked and forgotten when the loss of our brother/sister happens, because the focus on parents, spouses, or children seems surmounting.
Annie has done an incredible job of bringing together so much research and testimony, and has created one of the best guides for fellow sibling grievers I’ve read. Her writing flows effortlessly, and the arrangement makes it an easy, but very deep and thorough, read! The exercises at the end give springboard for your own personal grief work, whether you are new to this journey, or decades in, like me. This will be the first go-to recommendation when I encounter other sibling grievers.
The author shares this: “Hearing stories normalizes the experiences, emotions, and realities that don’t get talked about enough. Nearly 8 percent of Americans will lose a sibling before the age of twenty-five; you probably know someone who has lost a sibling and you don’t even know it. You may be that person for someone else.”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201108254-always-a-sibling