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Grief

When Siblings Grieve

The importance of support for adults grieving the loss of a sibling.

Key points

  • Sibling relationships are lifelong and significant.
  • While we are sensitive to sibling loss in childhood, such losses are often disenfranchised in adults.
  • There are things we can do to assist in understanding and coping with the loss of a sibling.

Siblings have a special and unique relationship. They share a secret language, a private code that unlocks common experiences. They can remember the smells of a vacation in Maine, the taste of grandma’s chocolate chip cookies, and the feel of the old felt curtains that once hung in their living room. They share memories—both pleasant and not.

I can make my sister laugh at any time. All I need to do is sidle up to her and ask her in a whisper if she has had a BM today. Though I am in my 70s and my sister now past 80 years old, the comment still never fails to amuse us and, more importantly, remind us of our lifelong ties and closeness. It brings us back to a long time past—a scary time when my mother was recuperating from an illness.

During those weeks, my sister and I were cared for by an aunt who, for whatever reason, valued regularity. Daily, we were quizzed as to whether we had had a bowel movement the day prior. A negative answer meant that she would give us a spoonful of a foul-smelling and even fouler-tasting tonic. Moreover, the question was embarrassing, especially for two children from a home where private functions stayed private. The question today brings up all those emotions—the fear and anxiety, the embarrassment, the conspiracy of support we lent one another, the closeness that has always characterized our relationship, and the shared humor that allowed us to cope.

Siblings are family—tied through life by kinship. Yet, unlike most family relationships, sibling relationships are more equal, less hierarchical. We are taught to obey our elders but play with our siblings.

Moreover, sibling relationships are often the longest relationships we share in our lives. I have known my sister for all the years of my life—longer than I have known my partner or my child. She has known me for all but eight years of her life.

Siblings are also part of our own identity. Part of who I am, who I will ever be, is how I was defined growing up—Franky and Dot’s kid brother. Family therapists such as Bowen (1978) have long understood that factors such as birth order, sibling gender, and spacing of siblings have a profound influence on personality, development, and identity.

And siblings remain important. Gerontologists, those who study aging, remind us that even in later life, siblings are an important source of support. We share problems and seek each other’s assistance. In fact, research has shown that as we age, we are likely to look to our partners, children, and siblings for contact, support, and personal and financial assistance.

We grieve each other’s deaths too. It does not matter whether our siblings are 9 or 90 years old when they die. We still miss them. We still grieve their loss.

We grieve their loss even when relationships may be strained or absent. Helen Rosen (1986) once characterized sibling relationships as having two major dimensions. One dimension she called closeness-distance. Some siblings are in constant contact with each other while others seldom speak. Another dimension was warmth-hostility. Some siblings have warm, supportive relationships. Others constantly argue or consciously choose to limit contact. Rosen noted that the more relationships veered toward the end of the continuum, the more intense the grief. Thus, it is not only the close and warm relationships we grieve. The sister who angrily broke off contact with a brother years before may be filled with remorse and grief should that person die. Her results are unsurprising as both highly interdependent relationships and highly ambivalent relationships are generally predictive of complicated grief.

There is, however, one difference. When a 9-year-old dies, families and friends may be very aware of the effect of that loss on a brother or sister. But when a sibling dies at 90 years of age, the grief of siblings may be ignored. Others often focus on surviving partners and children, ignoring the grief of siblings. Their grief is disenfranchised, unspoken, and unsupported.

This suggests three things. First, we need to support those in our intimate networks who have lost a sibling. They too need acknowledgment, validation of their grief, and support.

Second, it reminds us to review the sibling relationships in our lives—to reconcile if there is need, to cherish those supportive relationships, and to share our sense of appreciation.

Finally, it reminds us of the need to acknowledge and recognize our loss and grief. We may need to seek support as we adapt to that loss, perhaps from family or friends, perhaps from counselors. We need to recognize the significance of the loss—we have lost a critical part of our identity, maybe the longest relationship we had. Perhaps we have lost a friend. We have lost someone who shares our deepest and earliest memories, who knew all our pet names and nicknames—we have lost a sibling.

To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.

References

Bowen, Murray, M.D. (1978). Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Jason Aronson, Inc.

Rosen, H. (1986). Unspoken Grief: Coping With Childhood Sibling Loss. Lexington Books.

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