The lost vikings 2 healing items
My sister, Shannon, brother-in-law, Rob, and I, two years before they died.ġ) Sibling grief is often misunderstood-by parents, families, friends, and counselors, even by the siblings themselves. Here are ten I would like everyone to know. There are many things people need to learn about siblings and grief. 10 Things Everyone Should Know About Siblings & Grief But, both of my sisters’ deaths had a profound impact on my life. My understanding and the impact these deaths, based on my age when they died, was completely different. These two death experiences were completely different. I’ve experienced how the death of two different siblings, at two different times of my life, and in two unique sets of circumstances has impacted my family and me. These two experiences have given me unique insight into sibling grief. How wrong so many of us are about siblings and grief. Tragic as it was–hard as it was to suddenly inherit two sons, and as much as I missed her–I still felt sorrier for my parents, for her children, for her close friends, for everyone but me. My husband and I would raise her sons as our own. For one, I was older when she died–I understood loss better–but even more, because her husband had died just two months prior and she left behind two young sons.
Losing Shannon was even harder for me than losing Miki, and not just because we were closer. ( You can read a little about both my sisters’ deaths, here, in chapter 3 of my new memoir). Just 16 months apart, we’d grown up together we knew each other intimately, we were best friends. On October 17, 2007, my closest sister, Shannon, died. We buried Miki on September 11, 1993, my mom’s birthday-a date that would forever be marked for my family, a date that would become marked for the United States, and the world, just eight years later. I am an expert because I have lost two of my sisters.Īs I write, it is September 8, 2013-20 years to the day that my youngest sister, McLean, or Miki as we called her, died. Not because I’m a psychologist who specializes in grief.
A photo of my youngest sister, Miki’s, headstone, taken the day of my sister, Shannon’s funeral.