A year or so after my son Brenden died and I was coming out of the fog, it hit me that no one continued to ask how Annicka, Megan or Bryan were doing. Sure, they asked about my husband and me, but they stopped asking about Brenden’s siblings. We can’t forget about them as they, too, are grieving in an entirely different way. Please, if you know a sibling that has experienced the loss of a brother or sister, please ask about them too.
What about the siblings of the deceased? We forget about them. And I’m sorry.
How is your mom? How is your dad? What about .. how are you? Parents lose a child, but a sibling loses their best friend, their protector, their confidante. Some siblings don’t know life without them. We as parents had a life before we had a child. Some children have never lived without their sibling. What do they do now? There are no grief groups. Their friends don’t understand. How can they talk about their feelings with their parents who are also grieving?
What do siblings do? What happens to them? We forget about them. We grieve and have our spouse and our families. In many case, the deceased sibling is the only family they know. We can’t leave them behind. We must help the siblings, too.
How can we do this? Well, we can ask them how they are. We can carry them with us; they need help, too. We can just sit with them silently.
Don’t forget about the siblings 💚
