Mourning Our Brothers and Sisters

10/12/2024

💜

Just a reminder: Sibling Loss Awareness Day is no longer October 13th and is now officially observed November 1st.

12/16/2022

💜 -Nicole

I wonder…

12/06/2022

Thinking of you all this season 💜 -Nicole

The loss of the holiday season, as you knew it, is often one of the first significant secondary losses a person experiences after a death.

10/27/2022

10/08/2022

Thinking of you all 💜 -Nicole

Writer Lynne Reeves Griffin's sister, Cheryl, died by su***de seven years ago. When people become uncomfortable at any mention of my sister, she writes, I feel excluded from the mourning process.

09/14/2022

Thinking of you all 💜 -Nicole

07/22/2022

It’s ok. 💜 -Nicole

It took me 12 years to even begin to look at my grief. And each decade following, brought a revisiting of grief, in a whole new way.

You will come to know and understand your grief whenever the time is right, for you.

The right time may be because you’ve come to understand something you hadn’t before.

The right time might be because you found someone or somewhere that will listen and hold your heart.

The right time might be because you discovered a book or music or way to move your body that addresses your grief.

Hold your heart gently.

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It’s okay if you forgot to grieve.
Or didn’t know how to grieve.
Or were afraid to grieve.

It’s okay to start, right where you are.

It’s never too late to reach right in to understand the cracks that formed in your heart, the day someone you love, died.

07/19/2022

Spoken from the heart of another surviving sibling. 💜

Thirty two years ago today, he fell off this earth.
I was newly fifteen that hot July morning when my idyllic childhood vanished as easily as it had come.
I didn’t know the loss of a sibling- my closest genetic tie- would hurt for so long.
It’s not much talked about, but we want to talk about it.
It’s just so damn hard.
Every anniversary is a struggle.
At 8:24 am, I remembered riding in my best friend’s dad’s prelude on a lift home from the beach.
At 11:15am, I remembered waking up as we pulled in to the entrance of our small town hospital.
At 11:25am, I remembered saying goodbye, after a year of cancer.
At 12pm, I remembered running in the oppressive heat and landing at Pizza Inn where my cousin worked that summer. I wept as I waited for her and the kindest woman asked, “Sugar, did somebody hurt your feelings?,” and I said, “Yes, they really did.”
The day’s details blurred after that, but there were friends and music and laughter and the deepest ache I’ve ever known.
I am the mother to four children whom I adore, but I wonder how much of my heart was lost with him.
He had it all, every bit of my adoration and love.
We only had each other and boy, do I miss him.
I wonder what it would be like to just have five more minutes.
His laughter, the way his slender hands mussed my hair, the way he hollered my name and grinned widely at everyone who crossed his path.
No enemies, never an unkind word, the most beloved person in our family.
I couldn’t have guessed how life would move on without him.
How hard it would be to go home again.
How I would long for new pictures and memories.
How I would think of him every single day for the rest of my life.
My boys went fishing and I thought of him as they posed with their bounty.
At Cape Lookout, I remembered our wallowing in the shallows.
Today, I spoke to my parents and yet, I didn’t utter his name.
Adam, my heart whispered, Adam.
They knew.
When you belong to someone that’s no longer walking this earth, you know the language of the heart.

07/10/2022

My biggest fear is forgetting the memories only he and I shared. 💜 -Nicole

💗

07/04/2022

How true 💜 - Nicole

Book available - https://www.ladybugart.co.uk/book-1