Always a Sibling: The Forgotten Mourner with Annie Sklaver Orenstein

In this episode, Annie Sklaver Orenstein shares her personal journey of grief after losing her brother, Ben, in Afghanistan 15 years ago. After his death, Annie found little support for siblings, so she wrote Always a Sibling: The Forgotten Mourner's Guide to Grief, a book addressing the unique pain of losing a sibling. She discusses how there were no resources that resonated with her—most grief books focus on parents, spouses, or children, not siblings. As she researched and interviewed other bereaved siblings, she discovered patterns in their experiences that mirrored her own.

Annie talks about how, in the immediate aftermath of Ben's death, her parents were devastated, and she was left trying to navigate her grief while supporting them. She recalls a deeply moving moment when soldiers arrived to inform her mother of Ben’s death. The soldiers sat quietly with her mother in the kitchen, offering her their presence, which Annie believes was an act of deep compassion.

Through her research, Annie found that surviving siblings often feel invisible in the grieving process. Many try to protect their parents from additional pain by hiding their own sorrow. This dynamic creates a gap where siblings bottle up their grief, leading to long-term emotional strain. Annie’s work also reveals that society often questions the legitimacy of sibling grief, asking if the siblings were “close,” as though that should determine the validity of their loss.

Ultimately, Annie’s book serves as a resource for those grieving the loss of a sibling, offering validation for their pain and helping them feel less isolated. Whether or not siblings were close, their grief is real, and it’s time we recognized it.

https://www.instagram.com/anniesklaverorenstein

https://www.annieorenstein.com/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Annie: Siblings are the only ones who you experience the loss of like an immediate family member and people start by saying, were you close? As if that answer will determine if you're allowed to grieve, but whether or not you were close is pretty irrelevant in whether or not you're going to grieve. 

[00:00:18] Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly.

[00:00:20] I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end of life coach. Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself. My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true.

[00:00:43] In this episode, Annie Sklaver Orenstein shares her deeply personal journey of grief after losing her brother Ben in Afghanistan 15 years ago. Struggling to find support as a bereaved sibling, she wrote the book, Always a Sibling, The Forgotten Mourner's Guide to Grief, shedding light on the overlooked experience of sibling loss.

[00:01:05] Annie discusses how society often fails to recognize the depth of this grief, questioning the closeness of siblings as though it determines the validity of their pain. Her book provides validation and support, ensuring that those who have lost a sibling feel seen, heard, and understood. Thank you for joining us for this conversation.

[00:01:25] Welcome Annie to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on today. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Why you're here talking to me, whatever 

[00:01:34] Annie: you want to share. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm Annie Sklaver Orenstein, and I wrote a book about grief, specifically about sibling loss.

[00:01:46] It's called Always a Sibling, the Forgotten Mourners Guide to Grief. It came out in May. I lost my oldest brother 15 years ago, which is. He was killed in Afghanistan in October of 2009. After his death, I couldn't find anything that resonated with me. I tried finding helpful books and. There was nothing for siblings.

[00:02:16] It felt like everything was for spouses, children, parents, or all of these relationships that are obviously very significant, but that are different than a sibling relationship. And so a lot of the stuff in there didn't speak to me and kind of just added to my anger over the unfairness of all of it.

[00:02:36] Always a sibling is that book that I needed. 15 years ago, about 10 years after Ben died, I started kind of excavating his life and his memory. He had kept a lot of journals. We had never read them. We never opened them. And I started reading them and reaching back out to people in his life, interviewing them and talking to them.

[00:03:01] When I started, I thought I was going to put together something about Ben's life. And maybe it would be about him and I, but that this story was really about him. And over time, the story really became one about siblings and about the loss of a sibling. And, you know, ultimately became this book really specifically for the sibling relationship and for all of the good, bad and ugly.

[00:03:27] And it's not all good for sure, but really trying to give a space. For that type of loss and that experience. 

[00:03:34] Jill: And I did read your book, and there was a couple things about it that I found really interesting. First, I have siblings, but not really. I have half siblings and step siblings, but I grew up as an only child.

[00:03:46] So reading through some of it, I just found interesting the dynamics. Between the different siblings because your book isn't just about you and your story you interviewed how many like 350? Siblings. Yeah, so I did a 

[00:03:59] Annie: survey I surveyed about 350 bereaved siblings about their relationship and their loss and then I did in depth Interviews as follow ups with about 40 of those people.

[00:04:15] I'm a researcher by trade. It is what I do, and I think it's how my brain makes sense of things. When this project turned from one about Ben to one about sibling loss, my first thought was, I can't speak to sibling loss in general. I just know my one unique. I had a brother who I got along with very well.

[00:04:35] And we didn't have a traumatic childhood. We had a very nice relationship and he was killed in a way that is very public and violent comes with this like aura of heroism around it. And so the response that we got from people, the support we got from people was very different than people. I know who had lost, you know, loved ones to addiction or to mental health.

[00:04:59] And so I didn't feel like I could write to those. I could only write my own experience, but what I could do was interview people and talk to people and collect their stories, their experiences, and use them to shape the book and to shape those experiences that I didn't have firsthand. 

[00:05:18] Jill: Yeah, and I really like that you approached it that way.

[00:05:20] I mean, I've read a lot of books about death and dying and grief and I like all of them for different reasons. As somebody that works with a variety of different types of people, that have all these different experiences around death and dying and grief, if I was supporting somebody through that type of loss, for me being able to read all of those experiences and the way you kind of wove it all together helped me understand and I will be able to better support people now.

[00:05:48] Even though reading your story, my half brother is in the military. He was in Iraq, I think, four or three times. I don't know him that well, so I don't know the full story. In some ways there was still that little part of me that's like, that could have been me. And then reading how you were talking about people that are like, I am actually not close to my siblings, so in some ways I didn't feel like I should be grieving, and I was like, Oh, that's interesting.

[00:06:09] I'm still going to grieve when something happens to one of my siblings, but it's going to be different. And so it just made me think a lot. I really enjoy when books make me think a lot. And I think probably to me, the part about when the soldiers came to tell your mom, it makes me want to cry thinking about it, having kids and they sat on the floor with her.

[00:06:31] Oh my God. Oh my God. 

[00:06:33] Annie: For those listening. Who haven't read the book, my parents have a beach cottage that was my great grandparents. And that's where my mom was. My dad had gone back to their normal house to collect the mail. He went at the end of the day after work and there were soldiers that had been waiting there for however many hours.

[00:06:52] And they told my dad and he. Wanted to drive to the cottage and tell my mom they weren't concerned about him driving But he convinced it was fine and they said well, we're gonna follow you I didn't know these details until I started working on the book and I interviewed my parents and I asked them these details I knew my dad got home and the soldiers were there.

[00:07:15] I knew that he Drove to the cottage and they followed him. But what I didn't know was that he told my mom and she didn't really understand what he was saying. He kept repeating, Ben was killed in Afghanistan and she was confused. The soldiers walked up. Behind him, they had parked farther down, so she didn't see them immediately.

[00:07:37] As soon as she saw them, she collapsed on the floor in the kitchen. She told me, and this is, you know, ten years after it happened, that the soldiers just walked right in and sat down on the floor, one on either side of her, and they just sat with her. And it was the most heartbreaking and beautiful image.

[00:07:58] I think about those two soldiers a lot and many kitchen floors did they have to sit on with parents and widows and siblings and children after they had just given them news that would tear their lives apart. We had a military bereavement officer who is with us for a few weeks after that, who my parents have kept in touch with somewhat, but I don't really know anything about those two.

[00:08:28] Guys, who came the first day, I think about them all the time, and I want to thank them for sitting on the floor with my mom when the rest of us weren't home and didn't know what had happened yet. I often get asked, what can I do to support someone when they're grieving? And how do I support a friend or a loved one when they have experienced a loss?

[00:08:50] All I think of is like, just sit with them. Just, just sit there, just be present, just sit with them, and that's what they did, and I think it was such a beautiful thing that they did for my parents in that moment. They weren't in rush, and they just sat. 

[00:09:09] Jill: Yeah, I read that and I was thinking how beautiful it is, and did they do that?

[00:09:15] Over and over and over again. Over and over. Right? Like owls. Owl. I want to talk to people that do that work. Yes. Anybody listening knows somebody. Help me get connected. Yeah. I knew that work existed. Hadn't really thought about it that much until reading that and thinking, like you said, how many floors have they sat on?

[00:09:34] When you volunteer, you don't think of people getting down on the floor, holding somebody while they cry. It's not what you picture in your mind. I was. It's really a little bit blown away by that. And that's the thing with my work. People are like, isn't it sad? Doesn't it make you sad? And I'm like, yeah, some of this stuff makes me really sad, but that's also okay.

[00:09:51] Pretending that these things aren't real in the world so that I don't feel sad is not going to keep me safe from it. Right? It doesn't mean that it's going to keep me or my children or anybody else safe in my life. So it's okay to feel a little bit sad because also it shows me. There's also a lot of beauty still in the world that sometimes is hard to see and that image in my mind, I was like, that's amazing.

[00:10:15] I just thought that was so beautiful. And the chapter two that you talked about, like the parents, I don't remember what you titled it, but basically how parents that lose a child and then the children that are left, how Isolating it is, you know, and again, it's something that I have read similar things in other grief books about the children that lose a sibling, but not in the way that you talked about it in the way that you showed so many examples of different siblings.

[00:10:44] And I'm sure parents are doing the best they can. I mean, this is my worst nightmare is to have right or die. Yes. And I like to think that I would be able to still show up for the other one. Like fully and emotionally open, but again, if I'm not in that situation, I don't know how I would be. Was there anything about that part that you want to expand on a little?

[00:11:05] I really liked your whole book, but that chapter stuck out to me a little bit more than some of the other stuff. 

[00:11:11] Annie: I think the parent dynamic is this impossible situation where parents are grieving, you know, their worst nightmare. And they know that their surviving children are struggling and they know that they are not emotionally capable of fully showing up as much as they want to at the same time, the surviving kids and this seemed to be true.

[00:11:38] You know, I interviewed people who had experienced the loss of a sibling in early childhood, adolescence, teen, adult. It seemed to be very consistent throughout that everyone knew their parents were grieving and that their parents were upset and that their parents had experienced this terrible loss. And so no one, you don't want to make it worse.

[00:11:59] So even if like you're saying, Parent was able to be fully emotionally available and supportive. The kid is still feeling like my mom is hurting and I don't want to make her hurt anymore. I don't want to make it worse. Artie experienced this terrible thing. I don't need to add more to her plate. Don't want to make anything harder than Artie is.

[00:12:25] That often manifests in acting like you're fine. Acting like you're okay. Or trying to take on extra responsibilities so that you can take something off of, you know, your mom's plate. And so everyone's like, kind of trying to take care of each other. But like, Not taking care of themselves, right? Because if you're fully emotionally available to take care of someone else, then you're probably not fully taking care of yourself either.

[00:12:51] It's this dynamic where parents want to be there, but the kids are hiding their own grief because they don't want to make their parents upset. Or parents are completely unaware of their child. Grief and not thinking about it at all. Those kids often get the impression that they're not supposed to be grieving.

[00:13:12] And so there's no, like, there's no good way. There's no easy way as. with all of this stuff. And I think it was really interesting because I heard from some people whose parents acted as if the kid should be fine, that the loss only happened to the parent. Then I heard other situations where the parent was really supportive.

[00:13:34] There's a wall. No one wants to make it worse. No one wants to trigger. Your mom's suffering enough. You don't want her to see you in pain. Over time, you start to convince yourself that you're okay and that You don't want to grieve openly around your parents, and so you just kind of bottle it up, and it comes out eventually.

[00:13:55] Maybe years later, but it doesn't just go away. I heard the same sentiment, actually in the same words, from multiple people. The loss of my sibling. Felt like something that happened to my mother and I just thought that was fascinating as a researcher I'm always looking for patterns So when I start to hear the same thing over and over it felt like something that happened to my mom They didn't have Ownership over their own loss because it was all about how I can make this okay for my parents, how I can take care of my parents, how I can do whatever.

[00:14:31] You never end up thinking about your own loss or what you experienced. So you're just in caregiver mode trying to take care of everyone else and you don't take care of yourself and it catches up. 

[00:14:42] Jill: Yes, and it does catch up with us eventually. It actually kind of brings us into another point in your book that I wanted to ask about.

[00:14:50] You had a whole chapter about being angry, right? I talk to clients all the time and I'm like, anger is a real part of grief, right? There's all kinds of Things you're gonna feel you'll feel sadness. You might feel anger. You might feel relief like you're gonna feel a whole variety of things. It's all welcome.

[00:15:05] It's all natural. But you specifically talk about anger at society. And I hadn't really thought of that. But some of what you're talking about, like pretending that we're okay, and just taking care of everybody else. And that's one of the things I Struggle with that in society. We don't deal well with grief and we teach people to just kind of hold it all in We teach people there should be a timeline you're not over it yet Or even some of the things you pointed out like society kind of being like, well, it was just your sibling It's not like it was your kids like these things that we do and so that ties in with this anger towards society But I hadn't really thought of it in the way that you talked about some of it.

[00:15:44] I thought that was really interesting. To 

[00:15:46] Annie: your point about the sibling piece, siblings are the only ones who you experience the loss of like an immediate family member. And people start by saying, were you close? As if that answer will determine if you're allowed to grieve. That answer will determine, do I give you sympathy?

[00:16:04] Do I, you know, are you upset and, you know, we kind of touched on it earlier, but whether or not you were close is pretty irrelevant in whether or not you're going to grieve because with a sibling, whether or not you're close now doesn't mean that you weren't close as a child. It doesn't mean that this isn't.

[00:16:24] Possibly the only other person in the world who knows your childhood the way you do, or knows the crazy things your family does, or kind of understands you in that way. In a lot of cases, and this surprised me in the research, if you weren't close, it's even harder, right? Maybe you're holding out hope that Your relationship would be salvageable at some point, or maybe the fact that you weren't close has already caused a lot of trauma and grief in your life.

[00:16:50] No one asks that of a spouse, or a parent, or a child. No one's like, were you and your mom close? No. Like, oh, your mom died? I'm really sorry. You don't have to prove that you're allowed to grieve. And it feels like siblings have to prove. that they are allowed to grieve. And then, to your point, you know, with societal expectations, like about how long am I allowed to grieve for?

[00:17:13] And how openly? And in what way, you know, when does grief become just being overdramatic about something? And sibling relationships are so unique. I have two older brothers. One of them died. So, I have one surviving brother and we grieve the same person. He was our big brother, both of us, right? He was the oldest.

[00:17:35] So, we are both grieving our big brother and our big brother was the exact same person and yet, the way we grieve and even the things that trigger us, you feel very alone in that. Because, like, I'll give you a very concrete example. Wicked just came out. I loved the original book for Wicked. I read the book in high school and I was obsessed with it.

[00:17:57] I immediately read every book by that author. I loved his books. My brother Ben had given me the book. He was like, I think you'll like this. I read it and I loved it and I was obsessed with it. Then I went to NYU and Wicked opened on Broadway. With Idina Menzel and it was like the original cast, I'm fangirling a little and my brother came to visit me.

[00:18:18] We did the lottery where you can go to the Broadway theater and you put your name in and they reserve the first two rows for lottery winners. They pull the winners like an hour before the show. So we put our names in the lottery and we won. Front row ticket. So the first time I saw Wicked in theaters in the Broadway theater was with Ben.

[00:18:39] I hadn't really thought about it much in the last few years. And now the movie's out. It makes me miss him. And I really want to go see it, but I want to see it with him. And I can't go see it with him. Wicked isn't triggering for anyone else, right? He and my brother Sam never went to Wicked. It was our thing.

[00:18:55] So it's not triggering to Sam. And there are different things that are triggering to Sam, even though it's the same person. I think that ends up making grief feel very isolating. Even though you're grieving the same person, you're grieving very different experiences, relationships, and reminders. Fibbling relationships are so complicated, and there are so many factors.

[00:19:14] There's step, there's half. Did you grow up with them? What was it like in your house growing up that there's no, there is no universal, you know, and, and, and so grieving becomes so. that it can result in being very isolating. I think that feeling can cause a lot of anger that no one understands, right? And like, really no one does understand, but that can make you feel really angry.

[00:19:42] People not realizing why something is upsetting can make you really angry. And. Going back to your original questions, I think sibling grief is diminished so much culturally that you just are pissed off at everyone. My anger resurfaced when I became a parent because when I had my second child, everything is about how to get your kids to get along.

[00:20:04] Right. Kids without whatever that book is called, like raising siblings without rivalry. I had that one. Yeah, exactly. It's all like how to get them to get along. And I was like, it's all about just parenting advice being shut down. Our throats is about making sure that your kids get along and have a good relationship.

[00:20:22] Then why are we all surprised if one of them dies and the other one's upset about it? Why are we acting like siblings? don't get to grieve. Do we just want them to get along so parents don't have to listen to them argue? I don't think that's really the reason, but it made me so mad at everyone. It made me feel like everyone was a hypocrite.

[00:20:42] Jill: Yeah, I hadn't really thought about the fact that people don't expect siblings to grieve. Because to me, I'm like, of course, it's your sibling, you know, like children of my own. You're right. Like, I've read those books. I've worked really hard and they They have their moments when they bicker, but for the most part, especially as they get older, I think they'll be hopefully close and loving and have a great relationship.

[00:21:06] I've really worked hard to cultivate that. If something were to happen to one of them, I would be together all the time. Like, of course they would breathe. I didn't realize that that was such a culturally Like normal thing that people acted that way When a sibling died, it probably doesn't matter the age, right?

[00:21:25] Even if you're adults if one of your siblings dies like my mother's sister in law died recently and it makes her think more about her mortality. It makes her think about the fact that they're all aging and that probably sooner than later, it's going to be her brother. She had to go through this whole process just by the sister in law dying.

[00:21:45] So I'm sure that, you know, with my grandmother, she was one of 11 kids. She was one of the last siblings left. You know, she watched so many die. She grew up in like, I think she was born in 1915 or something. So, you know, they were dying at younger ages. This was her entire life. She just had siblings dying.

[00:22:04] I remember her saying to me when she was like 90 She was like, I don't even want to be here anymore. Everybody that I love is going all my things are gone You know my spouse my friends and so yes I'm sure that no matter what the age is and I say that even for parents that has a child die I don't think it would matter what age they are.

[00:22:22] I mean, I'm right when they're younger. It's a different thing It just does not seem natural that a parent should ever have to bury a child. That just 

[00:22:30] Annie: is not the natural order of And I think with siblings, because biologically it should be our longest relationship, right? We meet them before we meet any kind of spouse or partner.

[00:22:42] And because we should outlive our parents, right? Or we should know them longer than we know our parents. They should outlive our parents. If your sibling dies before the age of like 70, It feels out of the natural order of things. And I think what your mom experienced is totally normal, right? It's that mortality wake up call for people who lost a sibling when they were in their teens or twenties.

[00:23:05] It's a very scary wake up call. You assume you're going to live as long as your sibling. When your siblings die, you're like, Well, shit, I guess I'm going to die now. And if you're 15, that's a very scary prospect. You know, and you're like, Okay, so either I'm going to die now, or I might live like 80 years without them.

[00:23:26] That is also a terrible option. The expectation is that you get old together, right? There is something very unnatural about it that can be very scary for siblings, and I think the cause of death can make that more or less scary, right? I talked to some folks who lost siblings due to genetic diseases, and that's like Russian roulette.

[00:23:47] For full siblings who share all the same genes, and one of them dies from something genetic or hereditary, you're constantly looking over your shoulder. And feeling guilty on top of it all with addiction and mental health, it really scares people and they worry about their own children knowing that this is hereditary.

[00:24:07] It is a real wake up call and not always a logical one. I experienced a lot of postpartum anxiety and depression when my son was born, my older child. And I remember being in my therapist's office and I was just like, well, my mom lost her oldest child and her firstborn son. So I too will lose my child. I just don't know how, you know, but he had allergies.

[00:24:32] So I was like, that's, you know, he's gonna eat something and he's gonna die. And his allergies weren't even that bad. He outgrew them. But like, I was, I was just convinced it was not. If, it was when, at what point will I have to bury my child? And I remember my therapist being like, your brother was killed in war.

[00:24:51] He was killed in an active war zone. Your toddler lives in Brooklyn. This is not the same situation. I was like, irrelevant. Positive death is irrelevant. I was so convinced at the time I chalked it up to the postpartum anxiety. Then the more people I talked to throughout the book, I talked to someone whose brother died when she was 15 and he died of AIDS in the early nineties, and she was like, that summer I just thought I'd die.

[00:25:18] Like it didn't matter that he died of aids. I didn't have aids, I didn't have HIV. She was like, I just assumed I'd die in a car crash. Because he died, so I'm gonna die, you know? Or my sibling died, so I assumed my kid would die. It feels so unnatural that you just assume, I'm gonna go next, or this is gonna happen again.

[00:25:36] And whether or not it's logical doesn't matter. 

[00:25:40] Jill: Yeah, and that's an interesting thing that I have not heard from other grievers. That have lost children or spouses or anybody else that seems to be a little bit specific to siblings and it makes sense in a lot of ways because especially you've mentioned there was like some twins that you talked to.

[00:26:00] Yeah. They're like, they literally. Had been together since the moment they were conceived. And so of course it makes sense that you would think that you're gonna die as well. And again, these are the things we don't think about. And all these people are walking around feeling these feelings and grieving.

[00:26:17] And we're bumping into them every day and then wondering why. people are in the mindset that they're in. There's a lot of unprocessed grief that's walking around on two feet just not able to maneuver through the world and there's no shame or guilt in that, but it's a shame. One of the things I wanted to ask about too is the exercises at the back of your book, which I love those kinds of things.

[00:26:41] I love worksheets. I love exercises. One of the ones that I really loved was You said talk to people that knew your sibling and ask for their stories because I think about that a lot of that. If you were to talk to 10 different people that have known me throughout my life, they're going to tell you 10 different versions of me, depending on where I was, what I was doing, what our dynamic was.

[00:27:04] There's different versions of me in everybody's head. And I think that's a nice way to get to know somebody, to keep them alive in your memory, in your mind is to. Talk to people. So I don't know. I loved that one, but I also just really liked that you have them. I think 

[00:27:22] Annie: the exercise is ultimately with all things that I did throughout the course of writing the book and previous versions and previous iterations of the book that I've found really helpful.

[00:27:35] And I am actually not usually a, uh, activity exercise person. Like, I want to be, and I buy all the work. And I'm like, I probably have at least three like guided journals on my bookshelf right now that I ordered impulsively and have yet to open. So if you have advice on how to get started, I'll take it. I aspire to be an exercises person, but I'm not.

[00:28:00] The publisher wanted exercises and I was like, I don't want to just like throw in some fluff, you know? And my editor and I were like, Well, let's just for, for chapters where there's something helpful to do, let's include it. It doesn't have to be every chapter. We can take them all out completely. Take the pressure off.

[00:28:17] Just worry about the book. Ultimately, what I did was like, there were certain things that I found extremely helpful and I wanted to give people a guide to make it easier for them to start. And the interviews were like the first big piece. Because the interviews were how this book started when I still thought this was going to be a book about Ben.

[00:28:36] And the interviews, like, unlocked this thing. Not just for me, but my whole family. Where, you know, I reconnected with, like, his best friends from high school. And got these stories that none of us He was eight years older than me. So when he graduated high school, I was 10. He wasn't telling, you know, he told me stuff in hindsight, but he didn't tell me everything.

[00:28:58] And I, so I got these stories and then I got to tell these stories to my parents who were so happy to hear these stories. And they wanted to know how his friends were doing. And then his friends came over to visit and hadn't seen my parents in years. And like, you get to have this fun lunch where everyone was just like.

[00:29:14] Happy together and it felt like a gift for everyone. And if I hadn't reached out and said, Hey, can I talk to you about then? Like none of that would have happened, you know? And those guys ultimately like sent me encouraging emails throughout the process. And like, they were the, one of the first ones I emailed when I got a book deal.

[00:29:36] And like, I felt like I got a little piece of my brother back and, and it was a really beautiful. And so the exercises are things like that, where they're things that I did that felt like a gift. It felt like either it was making the grease a little bit easier to bear, or it felt like I was getting a little piece of my brother back.

[00:29:58] And I wanted other people to be able to experience that if they wanted to, and if they were ready for it. I didn't want to be hypocritical and like, Put in exercises that I would never do. So I made sure they were things that I had done and that were helpful. There were also things I did in the process of this book that were not helpful.

[00:30:19] I probably should not tell people to do this thing. In hindsight, it was not a very good idea. But the interviews were, were definitely, they were the first, I don't know, they felt like they unlocked something. And they were like, the first thing that needed to happen before I could do anything else. 

[00:30:36] Jill: Well, I loved that part.

[00:30:38] And the letter writing, that's something that I do often tell people, even if somebody's not dead, right? If you're just grieving the loss of a relationship, write them a letter of, all the things you need to say, all the things that you want to say, and then rip it up or burn it or do whatever you need to do.

[00:30:55] And the story about the one person that said they were writing letters to their sibling and sliding them under the bedroom door because the parents made them close the door and not go. I was so 

[00:31:07] Annie: high. Isn't that so heartbreaking? I mean, I'm like imagining, I'm also imagining as a parent, I knew that one of my kids would, was doing that.

[00:31:17] I would be like, open the fucking door. Let's go. I wonder if they knew though. Like they probably I mean, if 

[00:31:23] Jill: no one was going in there. No. And the other Later, they're probably going to find all these letters eventually, but Yeah. Oh, yeah. 

[00:31:32] Annie: Yeah. And the, the other one that, that Really, that haunts me a little bit.

[00:31:37] Is there someone who was saying that her brother was always in trouble and always kind of labeled a bad kid and he was sent to one of those therapeutic boarding schools that have now, you know, all been exposed for being Terrible places and she said she didn't know why he was sent away or anything like that But he was sent away to this therapeutic boarding school where they weren't allowed to visit him and she would write him a letter every Thursday and she said she remembers it was Thursday because she would write it in her school planner Every Thursday, just write and send that letter every Thursday.

[00:32:09] And I just imagine this 8 year old or 10 year old, whatever, writing in her planner to remember to write to her brother and, and not having any idea where he was or why he was gone or anything, but she just wanted to talk to her brother, you know, and, and I think it's a, oh, that one, that one haunts me too.

[00:32:28] Anything kid related, I think also. 

[00:32:30] Jill: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, but that's a big soapbox that I like to get on to is this idea that we think that by not telling children things that's keeping them safe, whether it's talking about death or talking about drugs or talking about sex or talking about your brother having mental health issues or addiction issues and like trying to pretend that it's not happening.

[00:32:51] It doesn't work. It just really doesn't 

[00:32:54] Annie: work. There's someone else in the book who was saying that she, she knew something was going on. She was older and she remembers like her brother starting to smoke cigarettes when he was like Nine or 10 or something. And she like, was like, this is going in a bad place.

[00:33:12] This is not good. And she was really concerned. And her parents just kept saying, it's fine. It's fine. You know, and she was like, but it's so clearly not fine. And, and what she realized in hindsight where her parents were trying to protect her and trying to shield her. But as a result, she became hypervigilant because she thought her parents weren't taking it seriously.

[00:33:32] She thought her parents. Weren't paying attention to this problem and that they were brushing it under the rug. And she was like, I know now they were doing all sorts of things that I didn't realize. She became really anxious and, and kind of hypervigilant. And there was a lot of parentification because she felt like, well, if my parents aren't going to take this seriously, then I need to, and I need to parent him and do all of these things.

[00:33:55] And I think if the parents had just said, this is a real thing that we are dealing with. Then she could have, she as a child could have known, okay, there are adults that are paying attention to this and that are taking care of us instead of what resulted, which was her feeling like she had to be the one in charge.

[00:34:15] There's obviously different levels of information that we can tell our kids, but you can't just pretend like everything's fine when it's so clearly not fine. 

[00:34:25] Jill: Yeah. Age appropriate conversations. My, uh, my boss, um, took his own life, and my kids wanted to know how. I'm not gonna tell them. They don't need to know that.

[00:34:36] But I wasn't gonna lie either when they were like, well, how'd he die? And I was like, and even within, like, the people around us, they were trying to, like, not tell anybody how he actually died because they didn't want to tarnish his reputation or whatever the idea was. And I just, I'm not gonna lie to them.

[00:34:52] But then when they were like, well, how'd he do it? I'm like, we don't need to discuss that. Even though there was a little part of me that was like, don't plant that seed in their head of like, taking your own life. And I'm like, yeah, they're exposed to YouTube, they're exposed to like, they don't need, the seed will already be planted if that's the thing.

[00:35:09] But by me being like, no, no, no, I would, it was a sudden death, like some stupid excuse. So again, honest conversations does not mean saying everything in graphic. Right, right. We can have age appropriate, but then of course, when they're older, if for some reason, if it comes up and they ask me when they're in their 20s of like, well, how did he do it then on them at the time they were like, I don't know, 10 and seven, they didn't need to know how, but I also didn't want to lie about it either.

[00:35:41] So, yes, and I'm still working on the age appropriate being honest. Even when there's that voice in my head sometimes that wants me to, like, not tell them the truth about things. I think this is the best way to do it, but I don't know. Maybe when I get older they're gonna be like, Oh my god, my mom traumatized me because all she talked about was death.

[00:35:58] Like, that might be the case too. Oh my god, I 

[00:36:00] Annie: worry about that so much. I worry about that so much. They know that my brother was killed. In war, right, and that he was in the army, they know that there was like an explosion, at least my son knows, but they don't know that it was a suicide bomb, right? I have not explained suicide bombing to my six and nine year olds and eventually they may ask for more details or they might.

[00:36:26] Read the book. I have not let them. I would let them read the acknowledgement, but that's it. But they'll, they'll learn, they'll find out. My son knows that I don't like anything bomb then, but like, no, I'm not, I'm not telling them that it was a suicide bomber right now, but I will one day. You know, and, and that is okay.

[00:36:45] I don't need to put that weight on them, but also it doesn't need to be a total mystery. But like, I do worry my son, especially is very, very empathetic, very empathetic soul. He got really upset at school on veterans day. Cause he wanted to bring in a picture of his uncle and then. They had the pictures hanging up and he saw the picture and he got really, really emotional.

[00:37:09] And he never met his uncle, but he got really sad about it. And he was like, Oh man, you know, am I messing him up? Like this didn't have to be his loss. He didn't know his uncle, but like, he's always going to be his loss. Right. He's he needs to know and it's who he's named after. It's part of his story. It's part of his history and his family.

[00:37:30] But I also wish I could just shield him from all of it. But man, I worry about that a lot. One day in therapy, he's gonna be like, My mom spent years writing a book about dead 

[00:37:41] Jill: siblings and messed me up. Yeah, I, yeah, and we don't know. But also He'll be in therapy for something. Exactly. That's what I tell myself too.

[00:37:50] Where I'm like, it's probably gonna be the thing that never crossed my mind. That they're gonna be like, Mom, you used to do this thing. And I'm gonna be like, What? That? That was too close. thing I was worried about. So I don't know. 

[00:38:01] Annie: I 

[00:38:01] Jill: don't know. Yeah, 

[00:38:02] Annie: exactly. I always think about that when people are like, well, kids are so resilient.

[00:38:06] I'm like, then why are we all in therapy talking about our childhoods? Like clearly, clearly kids are, they're just maybe good at burying things. I don't know. And they're resilient, but like only to a point. So yeah, I wonder about that a lot. 

[00:38:19] Jill: Yeah, but again, we can't shield them from all suffering in the world, and we can't shield them from feeling sad, we can't shield them from loss and from grief, and we just try to do the best we can to keep them safe.

[00:38:35] But it's still life, it's still living, it's still being a human, and there's a lot of not so nice parts of being a human, but there's a lot of also really beautiful parts, so you can't have one without the other. Yeah, exactly. Well, this has been a lovely conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time.

[00:38:53] I will put a link to your book in the show notes. Is there any other things that you want to mention? A site? Probably a link to, like, Instagram would be great, and the book, I think that'd be perfect. Awesome, I will for sure do that, and I'm gonna really, I am, I know I will have clients. That I will recommend this book to.

[00:39:12] I'm going to recommend it to other death doulas as well, anybody that works with grief and death because it really was a nice way to get a different perspective on somebody else's experience and it made me think. I think it'll be helpful for people too. 

[00:39:27] Annie: Oh, really, really nice 

[00:39:29] Jill: to hear. Thank you. You're welcome.

[00:39:30] Thank you again for coming on. In my next episode, I sit down with Sandra Doyle, author of My Life at the Cemetery. It's not as dead as you think. To explore her unique experiences with death and grief, Sandra shares how working in the cemetery gave her a front row seat to love, loss, and unexpected drama.

[00:39:51] Her book captures 88 unforgettable stories, from heartfelt tributes to eerie coincidences, reminding us that even in death, Life stories continue to unfold, and she shares some of her favorite stories with us. Join us for a fascinating conversation on embracing mortality, storytelling, and the deep connections that remain beyond the grave.

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[00:40:46] You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription, as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one time contribution. Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death Clearly.