Sibling Grief by Greg Eckerman

As a grieving parent, I’m not sure I can fully understand the grief of losing a sibling.  

But I have some observations to share:

• Children often suppress their grief in an attempt to protect their parents from the sadness of losing a child.
• As a society, we often try to distract younger kids from grief in the belief that we are protecting them . . . but as Alan Wolfelt says: ‘any child old enough to love is old enough to grieve.’
• As parents, we had a life before our children came into it.  We have a basis for comprehending a life without the child we’ve lost, as painful as that is. When a child loses a sibling, it is very likely that they have no frame of reference for life without that brother or sister.  They implicitly believe that their sibling would always be in their lives.  Whether they were getting along or not, they would grow older in connection . . . marriages, their children, family gatherings would always unite them.  Their ‘ripple-effect’ losses of identity, security, and sense of place can be profound.
• As difficult as it is for adults to find a safe space to learn to mourn and heal, it is much harder for young people. Their friends often have no experience of loss and their friends’ parents may try to distance their kids from that pain. Young people in grief are often prone to extreme isolation.
• For losses to substance abuse or suicide, siblings often carry similar burdens of guilt, shame, anger, and regret that we, as parents, experience. Losses to self-harm and despair can also inspire misguided ideas of making similar choices.

None of us can be protected from our grief.  To heal, we don’t need protection, we need safe space to learn to mourn. The only way to move beyond our grief is to go through it – the same is true for children who have lost a sibling. As parents, we have a duty to teach our surviving children that mourning is healing . . . and model how to do it.  They don’t necessarily need to mourn with their parents, that may be too difficult – especially in early grief.  But they need the connection and safe space of trusted companions on their grief journey as much as their parents do.

We have adult sibling survivors in several EricsHouse support groups. I love the context and nuance sibling survivors have brought into our Men’s Groups – we are much better for it. I hope that our outreach and continued recommendations from clients who are survivors of sibling loss allows us to further grow that support.  

For younger kids, we have a sister organization in Peoria, AZ called Billy’s Place (https://billysplace.me/) that has a wonderful support program.