Sibling Loss Quotes

Not only had my brother disappeared, but--and bear with me here--a part of my very being had gone with him. Stories about us could, from them on, be told from only one perspective. Memories could be told but not shared.

But Julian's blood was different. When she saw it she thought of him, shot and crumpling, the way his blood had run like water through her fingers. It was the first time in years that she'd actually thought he might die, that she might lose him. She knew what people said about parabatai, knew that it was meant to be a loss as profound as that of a spouse or a sibling. Emma had lost her parents; she had thought she knew what loss was, was prepared for it. But nothing had prepared her for the feeling that the idea of losing Jules wrenched out of her: that sky would go dark forever, that there would never be solid ground again.

Dr. Webb says that losing a sibling is oftentimes much harder for a person than losing any other member of the family. "A sibling represents a person's past, present, and future," he says. "Spouses have each other, and even when one eventually dies, they have memories of a time when they existed before that other person and can more readily imagine a life without them. Likewise, parents may have other children to be concerned with--a future to protect for them. To lose a sibling is to lose the one person with whom one shares a lifelong bond that is meant to continue on into the future.

The gastliness of nothing. Because I was nobody's sister now.

Like a deep sad note played beneath the ocean waving through the orb the memories of you the bittersweet echoes infixed forever in my heart

Coming back last time to the house she grew up in, Isabel had been reminded of the darkness that had descended with her brothers' deaths, how loss had leaked all over her mother's life like a stain. As a fourteen-year-old, Isabel had searched the dictionary. She knew that if a wife lost a husband, there was a whole new word to describe who she was: she was now a widow. A husband became a widower. But if a parent loss a child, there was no special label for their grief. They were still just a mother or a father, even if they no longer had a son or daughter. That seemed odd. As to her own status, she wondered whether she was still technically a sister, now that her adored brothers had died.

All I can say is, it's a sort of kinship, as though there is a family tree of grief. On this branch, the lost children, on this the suicided parents, here the beloved mentally ill siblings. When something terrible happens, you discover all of the sudden that you have a new set of relatives, people with whom you can speak in the shorthand of cousins.

The thing with Rubik's cubes, sometimes you make them worse when you try to fix them. I didn't want to make her worse, and I also didn't know how to make her better.

To lose a sibling is to lose the one different from you. There’s no one now against whom to say: But I am like this. I am this.

At morn we buried Melanippus; as the sun set the maiden Basilo died by her own hand, as she could not endure to lay her brother on the pyre and live; and the house beheld a two-fold woe, and all Cyrene bowed her head, to see the home of happy children made desolate.

There are recovery programs for people grieving the loss of a parent, sibling, or spouse. You can buy books on how to cope with the death of a beloved pet or work through the anguish of a miscarriage. We speak openly with one another about the bereavement that can accompany a layoff, a move, a diagnosis, or a dream deferred. But no one really teaches you how to grieve the loss of your faith. You’re on your own for that.

Losing a sibling is missing the one person who you could truly be yourself with.

But I'm in the water, too, I wanted to say. And there are plenty eyes on you. No one's watching to see if I stay afloat.

You worry about your parents, siblings, spouses dying, yet no one prepares you for your friends dying. Every time you flip through your address book, you are reminded of it---she's gone, he's gone, they're both gone. Names and numbers and addresses scratched out. Page after page of gone, gone, gone. The sense of loss that you feel isn't just for the person. It is the death of your youth, the death of fun, of warm conversations and too many drinks, of long weekends, of shared pains and victories and jealousies, of secrets that you couldn't tell anyone else, of memories that only you two shared.

The light in that room was a glow; I seem to remember the color green, or perhaps flowers. A pale green sheet covered his inert body but not his head, which lay (eyes closed, mouth set in a tense and terrible grimace) unmoving. Gianluca. Barely able to see, barely able to stand - my knees kept buckling – and breathing so quietly I thought that I, too, might die; that out of shock, I would just drift away, the shell of my body cracking open. No longer anchored by my brother’s love, I would be reabsorbed by sky. Gianluca. If there was never another sound in the world, I would understand – yes, that would be appropriate, it would be fitting. This was the antithesis of music, the antithesis of noise. My brother’s death seemed to demand silence of all the world. Gianluca.

Whenever something scary happens or I want to comment on something, like Joyce and Hopper’s constant bickering, which is getting annoying, I glance toward Adam’s side of the couch. And each and every time I do, the pain of his absence pierces my chest. That’s the thing about losing someone: there’s one major death followed by a million little deaths.

The love of sibling is the most unconditional love of all. It is pure and loyal. A love without demand, without expectations or pretense.

He wishes they'd realise, though, that you can't fill the hole of a missing mother by carving each other into pieces.

You wish there was an adequate term for what you are—like orphan or widower—a term that says 'I once meant something to somebody.

I live on an island called Ireland where most of the music is shite. I grew up listening to "Danny Boy"; I grew up hating Danny Boy, and all his siblings and his granny. "The pipes, the pipes are caw-haw-hawing." Anything with pipes or fiddles or even - forgive me, Paul - banjos, I detested. Songs of loss, of love, of going across the sea; songs of defiance and rebellion - I vomited on all of them.

At one hundred, surely you learn to overcome loss and grief—or do they hound you till the bitter end? At one hundred, siblings forget, sons forget, loved ones forget, no one remembers anything, even the most devastated forget to remember. Mothers and fathers have long since died. Does anyone remember?

Twenty-five percent said they were experiencing more sibling conflict than before. This was usually in families when siblings were perceived to be unhelpful as a parent was dying, or where sibling relationships had been strained from the start.

In my professional work I am struck by how often sibling relationships fall apart around the life-cycle stage of caring for elderly parents, and dealing with a parents death and it's aftermath. Failed apologies have the most serious consequences at stressful points in the life-cycle, and loss is the most challenging adaptational task that family members have to come to terms with.

And maybe one winter it will get too cold and I’ll forget about the summers we once shared. My family portrait might fold in too, producing the same horrific effect as Jeremy’s: that I, all along, had another sibling who eclipsed and became me—a prosperous sibling, an imposturous sibling, who outgrew a sense of time and place in which the three of us were everything to one another. Then only my blood in the sea could unfold and lead me back out of the origami.

My heart was my brother. And I no longer believe in a world that says he was too weak to deserve life.

The forgotten siblings become distant strangers

We grow stronger together.

but it is likely that Annie’s discovery of the pacifying effects of the bottle may have corresponded with the loss of her siblings and her placement in service shortly thereafter.

The love of siblings is the most unconditional love of all. It is pure and loyal. A love without demand, without expectations or pretense.

My gun was a mouth that could not stop yelling, and he just stood there, empty as a stolen child, not even this dream big enough for the two of us.

Her heart yearned to be buried with her brother.

It was simply not possible for someone to be watching Peep Show one day and cease to exist the next.

As the death of a parent either brings families together or breaks them apart, their motherless family eventually drifted away from each other, each sibling searching for their worth in a family of their own.

Losing a sibling, especially in youth, is a particular blow, a lateral loss of shared history and DNA that lacerates your identity. Your old narrative is shattered. Your new narrative becomes shapeless, full of confusion and pain. Double that.

What we, and others, often fail to realise is the depth and reach of our loss: that not only will we never have children, but we will never create our own family. We will never watch them grow up, never throw children's birthday parties, never take that 'first day at school' photo, never teach them to ride a bike. We'll never see them graduate, never see them possibly get married and have their own children. We'll never get a chance to heal the wounds of our own childhood by doing things differently with our children. We'll never be grandmothers and never give the gift of grandchildren to our parents. We'll never be the mother of our partner's children and hold that precious place in their heart. We'll never stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our siblings and watch our children play together. We'll never be part of the community of mothers, never be considered a 'real' woman. And when we die, there is no one to leave our stuff to, and no one to take our lifetime's learnings into the next generation. If you take the time to think about it all in one go, which is more than most of us are ever likely to do because of the breathtaking amount of pain involved, it's a testament to our strength that we're still standing at all.

Shen Qiao did not move for a long time, in these moments, the glint and noise around him faded, he held the slowly cooling body of Yu Ai, his head bowed, no one knew what he was thinking. Maybe it was a scene from all those years ago, he and his martial siblings on the mountain eating and sleeping in sync, training together. And yet past dreams sought, people departed, what has passed will never return. Just like some errors have no way of being remedied, some cracks will forever persist, and death, impossible to wake from.

At one hundred, surely you learn to overcome loss and grief—or do they hound you till the bitter end? At one hundred, siblings forget, sons forget, loved ones forget, no one remembers anything, even the most devasted forget to remember. Mothers and fathers have long since died. Does anyone remember?

At one hundred, surely you learn to overcome loss and grief— or do they hound you till the bitter end? At one hundred, siblings forget, sons forget, loved ones forget, no one remembers anything, even the most devastated forget to remember. Mothers and fathers have long since died. Does anyone remember?

William Maxell, who became Mary’s editor at the New Yorker. William recalled a poignant sense of loss when his own mother and new-born sibling died from the disease: ‘From that time on there was a sadness which had not existed before, a deep down sadness that never went away. We aren’t safe. Nobody’s safe. Terrible things can happen to anyone at any time.’36

Many people experience the loss of a pet as a more painful experience than the death of a family member or friend. For many of us, the love we share with animals is simple, pure, and unconditional, whereas our love for another human being reflects the history we have shared together--the good times and the disappointments. For many, love for a parent, a sibling, or a spouse is complex and conflicted.

One foot after another; he tried to keep his mind clear. But a thought broke his concentration- Sophia. Once he left London, he would never be able to see her again. Nick did not identify his feelings for her as love, because he knew himself to be incapable of that emotion. But he was conscious of a rip in his soul, a sense that to leave her for good would mean the loss of the fragment of decency he still possessed. She was the only person on earth who still cared for him, who would continue to care, no matter what he did.

Mixed emotions are compounded when a separation involves the potential of irretrievable loss. When there is a chance that we will never see a loved one again, we protect ourselves from the prospect of losing that person by becoming ambivalent-- holding our spouse at arm's length, picking a fight with a parent, or shutting a sibling out even while he or she is still physically present. Anticipating a loss, we both cling to our loved ones and push them away. We will resist their leaving and at the same time want to be finished with the goodbye.

Books provide a safe space to encounter new and unfamiliar situations, to practice living in unfamiliar environments, to test-drive encounters with new people and new experiences. Through our reading, we learn how to process triumph and fear and loss and sadness, to deal with annoying siblings or friend drama or something much, much worse. And when we get to that point in our real life when it’s happening to us, it’s not so unfamiliar. We’ve been there before, in a book. This ability to “preview” real-life experiences through books is one of the big perks readers enjoy.

Often the hardest struggles in life are not the big ones: death of a family member, loss of a job, or even sickness, because in these situations the problems are “big” enough where the world knows you are struggling and the collective sympathy of friends and family negate a good portion of the hardship. However, the small struggles or the cumulation of the small ones are never seen, you often struggle alone. And they are all so widespread that even if your coworker gets your work problems, your sibling understands your family problems, or your friend understands a social problem, rarely is there someone who can sympathize with the collective weight of them all.

I think we're all just doing our best to survive the inevitable pain and suffering that walks alongside us through life. Long ago, it was wild animals and deadly poxes and harsh terrain. I learned about it playing The Oregon Trail on an old IBM in my computer class in the fourth grade. The nature of the trail has changed, but we keep trekking along. We trek through the death of a sibling, a child, a parent, a partner, a spouse; the failed marriage, the crippling debt, the necessary abortion, the paralyzing infertility, the permanent disability, the job you can't seem to land; the assault, the robbery, the break-in, the accident, the flood, the fire; the sickness, the anxiety, the depression, the loneliness, the betrayal, the disappointment, and the heartbreak. There are these moments in life where you change instantly. In one moment, you're the way you were, and in the next, you're someone else. Like becoming a parent: you're adding, of course, instead of subtracting, as it is when someone dies, and the tone of the occasion is obviously different, but the principal is the same. Birth is an inciting incident, a point of no return, that changes one's circumstances forever. The second that beautiful baby onto whom you have projected all your hopes and dreams comes out of your body, you will never again do anything for yourself. It changes you suddenly and entirely. Birth and death are the same in that way.

With our father dead and our mother lost, we surviving siblings became unmoored. Unusual behaviors revealed themselves at inauspicious times. Simmering beneath the surface of our loneliness was a kind of inarticulable fury, reducing each of us to a meanness we despised. We longed to reach out to one another, but at every turn this instinct was thwarted, tangled in a web of suspicion and resentment. As much as we had loved one another in the fullness of life, we hated what we had become when that wholeness was eclipsed by loss. Mendacity, jealousy, and rage percolated on the back burner while egoism masqueraded as generosity. In our confusion, we second-guessed one another, and because we never learned to confront each other with frank vulnerability, we fell back into the roles assigned to us at birth.

There is a musical instrument, one that is in fact little more than a toy, that we in Viron used to call Molpe’s dulcimer. Strings are arranged in a certain way and drawn tight above a chamber of thin wood that swells the sound when they are strummed by the wind. Horn made several for his young siblings before we went into the tunnels; when I made them, I dreamed of making a better one someday, one constructed with all the knowledge and care that a great craftsman would bring to the task, a fitting tribute to Molpe. I have never built it, as you will have guessed already. I have the craft now, perhaps; but I have never had the musical knowledge the task would require, and I never will. If I had built it, it might have sounded something like that, because I would have made it sound as much like a human voice as I could; and if I were the great craftsman I once dreamed of becoming, I would have come very near—and yet not near enough. That is how it was with the Mother’s voice. It was lovely and uncanny, like Molpe’s dulcimer; and although it was not in truth very remote as well as I could judge, there was that in it that sounded very far away indeed. I have since thought that the distance was perhaps of time, that we heard a song on that warm, calm evening that was not merely hundreds but thousands of years old, sung as it had been sung when the Short Sun of Blue was yet young, and floating to us across that lonely sea with a pain of loss and longing that my poor words cannot express. No, not even if I could whisper them aloud to you of the future, and certainly not as I am constrained to speak to you now with Oreb’s laboring black wingfeather. Nor with a quill from any other bird that ever flew. *

Your original learned in childhood what attraction leads to, and that love is a loss of power. These lessons hold more influence than you think they do, and you understand them less than you should. You prefer the emotional patterns you know, and these were set at the orphanage for Kodiak, with your Cusk siblings and caretakers for you. Ambrose, "first sight" love is when you meet someone who accords with your childhood lessons, learned from your parents, of what you think love should look like. What did your mother teach us? Who kept her son but sent his clones off to live a season at a time with a stranger, with no thought to their suffering? Who felt her and Ambrose's legacy was worth putting so many copies of him through this torture? Kodiak does not match the models you learned as a child, and you don't match his. But that seemingly natural sense of "fitting together" is a construction. The love Kodiak and I share in this lifetime is proof of it.

A self-concept is fluid; it is composed of numerous ongoing self-assessments forming an awareness of a person’s physical and mental attributes. Our perception of self comes from our interaction with all of nature, and is especially dependent upon social interactions with parents, siblings, spouses, children, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and other aquanatiences. Self-identity includes an understanding of a person’s personality attributes, knowledge of their skills and abilities, taking stock of their values and religious affiliations, and tallying their choices for occupation and hobbies. Identity is a mixture of our resilience and our energy; it is the product of our aggressiveness and meekness. We forge an identity with the arms we bear to protect our territory and by the gentleness that we exhibit towards other people. Identity is weaved from sunshine and shadows. It derives from good and evil conduct; it encompasses a sense of love, wonder, and loss.

Max.” It was a sharp whisper to reinstate the silence and Max did not know what kind of acerbic retort waited on the other side of his stilted pause. Kevin had never snapped at him before, but there was a part of him that thought it would happen today. His brother turned to face him, his deep blue eyes lined with tears and burning with anguish. “You’re my brother,” he said, his voice low and unsteady. “You already know how I feel…and I know how you feel…so there’s no need to talk about this. And if you mention his name again, I’m gonna ask you leave.” Max nodded. That wasn’t the verbal lashing he was expecting but it made him understand his role in the situation. Kevin hadn’t played video games all day for the entertainment. He had done it for the distraction. And he hadn’t allowed Max to sit in his room for so long because he intended to open up. He had kept Max there because he wanted the silent comfort, the pillar of strength only a brother could provide. - Kevin to Max

They climbed through the fog, trusting their guide, whose sheepdog ran ahead of them, unearthing a hedgehog among the crags. As they got higher, ‘the ground appeared to brighten’. A flash of light illuminated the turf and, all of a sudden, the moon was out. Wordsworth looked down. They were above the mist, which now resembled a sea with the peaks of the surrounding mountains emerging like the backs of whales. In the distance, they saw the mist dipping and swirling into the real sea. And somewhere between the mountains and the sea, they spotted ‘a blue chasm, a fracture in the vapour’, A deep and gloomy breathing-place thro’ which Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams Innumerable, roaring with one voice. ‘In that breach’, Wordsworth writes in The Prelude, ‘Through which the homeless voice of waters rose’, Nature had lodged ‘The soul, the imagination of the whole’.37 This idea of the imagination filling a gap, emerging from an abyss of emptiness, and indeed of homelessness, is at the core of Wordsworth’s vocation. His poetry, the work of his imagination, filled the void of the losses – of parents, of home, of political ideals, and later of friends, siblings and children – that afflicted him.

You were never as much to blame as you thought,” she told him softly. A brief smile touched his lips. “That’s what you say. But you’re biased.” She shrugged. “Maybe a little. But I would never have agreed to marry you if I’d thought you capable of real wickedness. I wouldn’t have risked having a child of mine suffer the same torments you and your siblings suffered.” Oliver went still. “And does this sudden mention of some future child have anything to do with your sneaking out of the house to consult with a physician this morning?” She gaped at him. “You knew? How did you find out?” “Believe me, angel, I know whenever you leave my bed.” His eyes gleamed at her. “I feel the loss of it right here.” He struck his heart dramatically. “Aunt Rose spoke the truth about you,” she grumbled. “You are a smooth-tongued devil. And apparently you read minds, as well.” He chuckled. “Your aunt simply cannot keep secrets. But to be honest, it’s not been hard to notice how little interest you show in your breakfast these days, and how often you like to nap. I know the signs of a woman with child. I watched my mother go through them with four children.” “And here I was hoping to surprise you,” she said with a pout. “I swear you are impossible to surprise.” “That’s only because you used up all your surprises in the first hour of our meeting.” “How so?” “By boldly threatening me with Freddy’s sword. And by agreeing to my insane proposal. Then by showing sympathy for the loss of my parents. Few people ever did that for me.” As a lump caught in her throat, he pulled her into his arms. “But your greatest surprise came long after, on that day at the inn.” Laying his hand on her still flat belly, his voice grew husky. “You surprised me by loving me. That was the best surprise of all.

I’ve only an hour,” Colin said as he attached the safety tip to his foil. “I have an appointment this afternoon.” “No matter,” Benedict replied, lunging forward a few times to loosen up the muscles in his leg. He hadn’t fenced in some time; the sword felt good in his hand. He drew back and touched the tip to the floor, letting the blade bend slightly. “It won’t take more than an hour to best you.” Colin rolled his eyes before he drew down his mask. Benedict walked to the center of the room. “Are you ready?” “Not quite,” Colin replied, following him. Benedict lunged again. “I said I wasn’t ready!” Colin hollered as he jumped out of the way. “You’re too slow,” Benedict snapped. Colin cursed under his breath, then added a louder, “Bloody hell,” for good measure. “What’s gotten into you?” “Nothing,” Benedict nearly snarled. “Why would you say so?” Colin took a step backward until they were a suitable distance apart to start the match. “Oh, I don’t know,” he intoned, sarcasm evident. “I suppose it could be because you nearly took my head off.” “I’ve a tip on my blade.” “And you were slashing like you were using a sabre,” Colin shot back. Benedict gave a hard smile. “It’s more fun that way.” “Not for my neck.” Colin passed his sword from hand to hand as he flexed and stretched his fingers. He paused and frowned. “You sure you have a foil there?” Benedict scowled. “For the love of God, Colin, I would never use a real weapon.” “Just making sure,” Colin muttered, touching his neck lightly. “Are you ready?” Benedict nodded and bent his knees. “Regular rules,” Colin said, assuming a fencer’s crouch. “No slashing.” Benedict gave him a curt nod. “En garde!” Both men raised their right arms, twisting their wrists until their palms were up, foils gripped in their fingers. “Is that new?” Colin suddenly asked, eyeing the handle of Benedict’s foil with interest. Benedict cursed at the loss of his concentration. “Yes, it’s new,” he bit off. “I prefer an Italian grip.” Colin stepped back, completely losing his fencing posture as he looked at his own foil, with a less elaborate French grip. “Might I borrow it some time? I wouldn’t mind seeing if—” “Yes!” Benedict snapped, barely resisting the urge to advance and lunge that very second. “Will you get back en garde?” Colin gave him a lopsided smile, and Benedict just knew that he had asked about his grip simply to annoy him. “As you wish,” Colin murmured, assuming position again.

I held back from seeing Jacob much during those weeks. He wanted only his mother, and I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing him like that. I stopped by to pick up his siblings and take them away, but I rarely went inside the house. After several days of this, I knew I must face the sight that my daughter faced daily. Inside, I approached the couch tentatively. Would I upset him? A few times when I had visited, he’d hidden his face in a blanket. I reached out hesitantly, touching his thin arm, the skin hot and dry as paper. He didn’t move, but I could see the rise and fall of his swollen chest. Suddenly, my legs gave way, and I dropped to my knees in front of the grandson that I loved so dearly. My hand shook as I lifted it to his soft, fuzzy head. I felt as though I was in the presence of someone very holy. “I love you,” I whispered, and when he didn’t respond, an even softer whisper, “Tell Grandpa that I love him and miss him.” And then, with a groan, “Dear God, don’t let him suffer.

The corners of her mouth drooped and he felt an odd panicked twinge somewhere in that empty space where a heart might dwell in other people. "The trouble," Eve said, "is that I've never been able to tell when you're lying to me and when you're not. It wouldn't matter, I suppose, but that you don't care if you lie to me or not. And I do. I used to not. Or maybe I used to tell myself I didn't care. But Val," she said softly, looking at him with his own eyes, "now I do." She turned and, taking Makepeace's arm, very quietly left the room with her fiancé. And it was a very good thing, Val thought, that he hadn't a heart. Because it might've broken then.

I should love him more, like he’s my favorite, which is hard to do, because he was my only brother, and already my favorite

Hamlet doesn't fully see that his metaphysical miseries constitute a subliminal symptom of grief; and this was exactly my case. I thought I was sick, I thought I was dying (maybe that is what bereavement actually asks of you). Literature gives us these warnings about the main events, but we don't recognize the warnings until the events have come and gone. Isabel, my senior in the loss of a sibling, told me that you just have to take it, like weather—yes, like sleet in your face.

Three years ago!” he yelled, and all of the emotion seemed to hit at once. “You sent me one letter in four years, Dinar! And I defended you! I defended you to all of them – Mother, Father, Tomaas, even the other families in Parejon that came asking. I told them you were well and happy and doing great, important things. Convinced them it was all for the best. But I have no idea why, because you hurt me worst of all.

Why had it taken finally seeing her again for him to realize just how much it had hurt watching her leave?

You have always looked at me like I hang the cursed stars in the sky and that was sweet when we were young – but now, Ely, it’s too hard! It is too hard to be perfect for you because when I am wrong you assume that I meant to hurt you – that it was all part of the plan because I am too smart and too good to do something badly.

The only one you protected was yourself,” he snapped, the words choking out before he could stop them. “Yes,” Dinar hissed back. “I did protect myself.” Something dark and angry flickered in her eyes. “It was about damn time I learned to do that.

Was she the one who had changed, or had he? Or had both of them stayed too much the same in a world that was shifting faster and faster around them? Maybe they were too old to be what they had been. The problem, Ely thought, was that he wasn’t quite sure what they were supposed to be now.

...he would be returning to a world that would treat him all the same. More potential, but more loss. The university...worked to subvert him, his closest friend would turn on him. It was certain. Everything he cared about would vanish or warp into something hellbent on destroying him. The world sent its message loud and clear: he did not belong.

I'm outside my parents' home in the aftermath of their deaths, waiting for my three siblings to arrive so we can go through it, room by room, object by object, memory by memory; decide what to keep, what to discard. Stepping out of my rental car, part of me feels like a trespasser now, while another part feels like I never left. (7)

In addition to the physical aspects of the work, I'm here to recreate my own personal story, my own narrative. For years—a lifetime, really—when I thought about my life, I saw it through the lens of other people, usually my parents, sometimes my sib-lings. If they told me I was this, that, or the other type of person, I usually took their words at face value, even when the descriptions sounded negative, even when I fought their pronouncements. But translation is all about making decisions, hundreds, even thousands of decisions. Maybe a new way exists to look at myself, at my life. At long last, I’ll take those same words and events to come up with different meanings, different interpretations, ones I've reached on my own, stripping away others' interpretations of who I am. (9)

Her laugh was the last thing he heard before the explosion.

The untimely loss of an older sibling is akin to the premature end of the younger’s childhood.

I know your family has been through quite the ordeal and I’m sorry for your loss.” Here we go. “I just hope you understand that unfortunate things like this are going to happen throughout your life, but that doesn’t give you the excuse to not live up to what’s expected of you.” Jesus Christ. It’s a fucking research paper. It’s not like I’m rewriting the Constitution. I know I should just nod and agree with him, but he picked the wrong day to play preacher. “Mr. Mulligan, Les was the only sibling I had, so I actually don’t foresee this happening again. As much as it seems like it happens repeatedly, she can only kill herself once.

I tried to compose a letter to my father this morning, while you beavered away on my mundane business, and somehow, Mrs. Seaton, I could not come up with words to adequately convey to my father the extent to which I want him to just leave me the hell alone.” He finished that statement through clenched teeth, alarming Anna with the animosity in his tone, but he wasn’t finished. “I have come to the point,” the earl went on, “where I comprehend why my older brothers would consider the Peninsular War preferable to the daily idiocy that comes with being Percival Windham’s heir. I honestly believe that could he but figure a way to pull it off, my father would lock me naked in a room with the woman of his choice, there to remain until I got her pregnant with twin boys. And I am not just frustrated”—the earl’s tone took on a sharper edge—“I am ready to do him an injury, because I don’t think anything less will make an impression. Two unwilling people are going to wed and have a child because my father got up to tricks.” “Your father did not force those two people into one another’s company all unawares and blameless, my lord, but why not appeal to your mother? By reputation, she is the one who can control him.” The earl shook his head. “Her Grace is much diminished by the loss of my brother Victor. I do not want to importune her, and she will believe His Grace only meant well.” Anna smiled ruefully. “And she wants grandchildren, too, of course.” “Why, of course.” The earl gestured impatiently. “She had eight children and still has six. There will be grandchildren, and if for some reason the six of us are completely remiss, I have two half siblings, whose children she will graciously spoil, as well.” “Good heavens,” Anna murmured. “So your father has sired ten children, and yet he plagues you?” “He does. Except for the one daughter of Victor’s, none of us have seen fit to reproduce. There was a rumor Bart had left us something to remember him by, but he likely started the rumor himself just to aggravate my father.

I want to do you in oils,” she said, advancing into the room. “I will content myself with some sketches first. I trust you can remain awake for another hour.” “Awake will not be a problem.” Sane, however, became questionable. “Genevieve, you cannot remain in my rooms with me unchaperoned when the rest of the house is abed.” She flipped a fat golden braid over her shoulder. “I was unchaperoned with you at breakfast; I was unchaperoned with you in your studio before the boys arrived. I was unchaperoned with you in the library when the children went for their nap after luncheon. How did you expect to pose for me, Mr. Harrison, if not privately?” “You are—we are—not properly clothed.” Her gaze ran over him assessingly, as dispassionately as if this Mr. Harrison fellow were some minor foreign diplomat with little English. “Had I been accosted in the corridor by my sister, Sophie would have taken greater notice were I not in nightclothes. Besides”—a pink wash rose over her cheeks—“I have seen you without a single stitch and memorialized the sight by the hour with pen, pencil, and paper. Perhaps you’d like to take a seat?” He would like to run screaming from the room, and nearly did just that when a quiet scratching came from the door. “This will be our chaperone,” Lady Jenny said. To be found alone, after dark, with a lady in dishabille could also be his downfall. The Academy would quietly pass him by, his father’s worst accusations would be justified, and the example he was supposed to set for all those younger siblings would become a cautionary tale. As he watched Genevieve stride across the room to the door, Elijah realized being found with him could be her downfall too, the loss of all the reputation and dignity she’d cultivated carefully for years. The Royal Academy might admit him in another ten years, despite some scandal in his past—Sir Thomas had been accused of dallying with no less than the regent’s wife—but Jenny’s reputation would not recover. “Genevieve—” She opened the door a few inches, and a sizable exponent of the feline species strutted into the room, tail held high. This was the same dignified, liveried fellow who’d shared a bed with Elijah at Carrington’s. “And here we have Timothy?” “None other. He can hold a pose for hours and all the while look like he’s contemplating the secrets of the universe.” “While we contemplate folly. Genevieve, you take a great risk for a few sketches.” She

Maybe Savannah’s heart and mine had been broken by the loss of our siblings. But when we began to repair them, maybe we melded them back together to create our two hearts as one. We were stronger that way. Beating in unison. And I was sure they were more beautiful than they had ever been on their own.

Culturally, in the West, we tend to see romantic and parental relationships as superior in influence to others, and studies have shown that adult attachments are mostly directed towards a romantic/sexual partner over adult friendships.31 But our relationships with siblings or close friends can function as some of the most important attachment bonds that we have. For many, a friend or sibling can serve as a primary attachment figure, and when there has been attachment wounding with partners or parents, it is these very connections that can provide the corrective attachment experiences and healing from the attachment disruptions we’ve had with others at the relational level. Friendships that function as a primary attachment can also leave a painful mark on one’s heart and a significant attachment disturbance when there is betrayal, dishonesty, ghosting or drama that ends in the loss of the friendship. Death or loss of a close friend can create massive shock waves in our attachment systems.

Most of all, Joe had heart. He’d overcome a bad stutter as a child (which probably explained his vigorous attachment to words) and two brain aneurysms in middle age. In politics, he’d known early success and suffered embarrassing defeats. And he had endured unimaginable tragedy: In 1972, just weeks after Joe was elected to the Senate, his wife and baby daughter had been killed—and his two young sons, Beau and Hunter, injured—in a car accident. In the wake of this loss, his colleagues and siblings had to talk him out of quitting the Senate, but he’d arranged his schedule to make a daily hour-and-a-half Amtrak commute between Delaware and Washington to care for his boys, a practice he’d continue for the next three decades.

You wish there was an adequate term for what you are—like orphan or widower—a term that says “I once meant something to somebody.” When you were a little girl, you went mute from lack of need, but now you are mute with grief.

All of her was laid bare now - I saw her. She was just a little old woman, raised in a country without education or any of the basic things she had given my mother and my mother's siblings, someone who'd been told as a young girl that women were put on this earth to give birth and rear children and not be a burden in any way but live as servants lived, productively, without fatigue or requirements of their own yet had been resourceful and clever enough to come up through the feminist movement that Mao had devised to get women out of the house and into fields and factories, someone who had been given more power than any of the women in her lineage, who alluded to all the people she "saved" but never mentioned the people she turned in during the Cultural Revolution, someone whose hearing loss fed right into her fears of becoming useless, becoming someone others no longer bothered to address, and to counter those fears, she had to adopt a confidence that was embarrassing to witness, she had to maintain an opinion of herself so excessively high that it bordered on delusional.

At the altar, the wedding party seems to have recovered their composure—Monty’s face is slightly less red, and George clears his throat, shaking out his sleeves. “All right, next. Next, you will both read the vows you wrote.” “What?” Monty looks from George to Percy. “No, we don’t . . . no. Wait. We said we weren’t doing those! You”—he points an accusatory finger at Percy—“said I didn’t have to write anything, I just had to show up! Did you write something? Oh my God!” He shrieks as Percy reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. “You bastard, you wrote something?” “I didn’t want you to stress over it,” Percy says. “Son of a bitch.” “I thought you’d prefer to come up with something on the spot.” “Goddammit, Percy, I’m going to murder you.” “See, that’s perfect.” Percy starts to unfold the paper, but Monty grabs it, crumpling it between their hands. “No no, you don’t get to read your thoughtful shite first! I’ll look like even more of an idiot.” “All right, you go first, then.” Monty takes a deep breath, then another, at a loss for words for perhaps the first time in his life. “What do I have to say?” he asks, looking to George, who shrugs, then back to Percy. “You don’t have to say anything,” Percy replies. “Well, yes, I know that, but then I look like an insensitive twat who didn’t write his own wedding vows, though in my defense,” and here he addresses the crowd, “he told me we weren’t doing these.” Percy unfolds Monty’s fist from around the crumpled vows, then takes his hand. “Just tell me you love me,” he says. “That’s more than enough.

Tarantula sat down in the empty seat next to Skyler. A round plate with a red tangled mess in the center was placed before her. Her nasal slits contracted as repulsive fumes rose from the steaming heap. For some reason, Skyler’s sibling was nudging her arm with a round wooden bowl filled with shreds of green material covered by an oily sheen. Tarantula immediately passed it on to Skyler. How could humans have such problems with obesity? The greasy loaf of sliced bread festering in a basket in the middle of the table required evasive action as well. She pretended to take a sip of her water. “Well, Tula, tell us all about yourself,” Skyler’s mother chirped as she jabbed her fork into the mound on her plate and began twisting away. “My parents died in a car crash and I’m here living with my uncle.” There was a silence around the table. Had she said something wrong? Skyler’s sister raised her eyebrows while staring at her plate. Skyler glared at her mother. “Yes, Skyler shared that with me, I am so sorry for your loss,” her mother said uncomfortably, “but tell me, what are your plans?” “To get my GED.” “Yes, dear, but what are your hopes and dreams?” How satisfying it would be to explain to this prying human the true intentions she harbored for her precious daughter while throwing the contents of her plate across the table and into her face.

A round plate with a red tangled mess in the center was placed before her. Her nasal slits contracted as repulsive fumes rose from the steaming heap. For some reason, Skyler’s sibling was nudging her arm with a round wooden bowl filled with shreds of green material covered by an oily sheen. Tarantula immediately passed it on to Skyler. How could humans have such problems with obesity? The greasy loaf of sliced bread festering in a basket in the middle of the table required evasive action as well. She pretended to take a sip of her water. “Well, Tula, tell us all about yourself,” Skyler’s mother chirped as she jabbed her fork into the mound on her plate and began twisting away. “My parents died in a car crash and I’m here living with my uncle.” There was a silence around the table. Had she said something wrong? Skyler’s sister raised her eyebrows while staring at her plate. Skyler glared at her mother. “Yes, Skyler shared that with me, I am so sorry for your loss,” her mother said uncomfortably, “but tell me, what are your plans?” “To get my GED.” “Yes, dear, but what are your hopes and dreams?” How satisfying it would be to explain to this prying human the true intentions she harbored for her precious daughter while throwing the contents of her plate across the table and into her face.

Kalaupun Mama mau bilang ke orang-orang punya dua anak, seenggaknya Mama bilang sama mereka kalau anak Mama yang pertama udah meninggal!

I add him to seventy-two-thousand and subtract him from me.

Remember that people are only guests in your life story, even if they are your parents, your siblings, family, friends or relatives–the same way you are only a guest in theirs. Ultimately the life you live is yours. They will soon leave or you will soon leave them. Make the chapters of your own story worth reading.

There is an expectation that a trip into the wilderness—even just for the weekend—entails certain risk not found in daily life. A good trip entails a lot of physical effort and teamwork. People expect to be able to cope with the usual demands of the wilderness, and, thus, they develop unusual coping mechanisms. Sometimes, however, for some or all of the people on the trip, events surpass standard coping mechanisms. Then a wilderness-style critical incident has occurred. A critical incident is almost any incident in which the circumstances are so unusual or the sights and sounds so distressing as to produce a high level of immediate or delayed emotional reaction that surpasses an individual’s normal coping mechanisms. Critical incidents are events that cause predictable signs and symptoms of exceptional stress in normal people who are having normal reactions to something abnormal that has happened to them. A critical incident from a wilderness perspective may be caused by such events as the sudden death or serious injury of a member of the group, a multiple-death accident, or any event involving a prolonged expenditure of physical and emotional energy. People respond to critical incidents differently. Sometimes the stress is too much right away, and signs and symptoms appear while the event is still happening. This is acute stress; this member of the group is rendered nonfunctional by the situation and needs care. More often the signs and symptoms of stress come later, once the pressing needs of the situation have been addressed. This is delayed stress. A third sort of stress, common to us all, is cumulative stress. In the context of the wilderness, cumulative stress might arise if multiple, serial disasters strike the same wilderness party. The course of symptom development when a person is going from the normal stresses of day-to-day living into distress (where life becomes uncomfortable) is like a downward spiral. People are not hit with the entire continuum of signs and symptoms at once. However, after a critical incident, a person may be affected by a large number of signs and symptoms within a short time frame, usually 24 to 48 hours. The degree or impairment an event causes an individual depends on several factors. Each person has life lessons that can help, or sometimes hinder, the ability to cope. Factors affecting the degree of impact an event has on the individual include the following: 1. Age. People who are older tend to have had more life lessons to develop good coping mechanisms. 2. Degree of education. 3. Duration of the event, as well as its suddenness and degree of intensity. 4. Resources available for help. These may be internal (a personal belief system) or external (a trained, local critical-incident stress debriefing team). 5. Level of loss. One death may be easier than several, although the nature of a relationship (marriage partners or siblings, for example) would affect this factor. Signs and symptoms of stress manifest in three ways: physical, emotional, and cognitive. Stress manifests differently from one person to the next. Signs and symptoms that occur in one person may not occur in another, who has responses of his or her own.

We have a very simple belief that everyone involved in a divorce is a griever. That includes children, parents, siblings, and friends of the couple. This attitude makes it easy for us. We always know that the primary issue is unresolved grief.

You won't talk Statistics on COVID deaths. If father, mother, sibling, offspring, spouse, relative, loved ones or you die. It will be 100% loss. Stats dont represent Emotions

With the logic o f Real-as-impossible you h ave this notion of the unattainable object - the l ogic of desire, whe r e desire is structured around a pr imordial void. I would argue that the no tion of drive that i s present here c annot be read in these transcendentalist term s : that is to s ay, i n terms of an a priori loss where empiric a l obje cts never coincide with das Ding, the Thing. The vulgar example that I wo uld give here is the following. Let us s ay you are in love with a woma n . and that y o u a r e obsessed wi t h her vagin a . You do all the p o s ­ sible things : y o u p enetrate it, ki s s it, whatever - i t' s your problem; I won ' t go into tha t . Now, from a trans c endental­ ist perspective the idea is that this is a typical illusi o n : you think the vagina is the Thing itself, but really it's not, and you should accept the gap between the void o f the Thing and the contingent object filling it up. But when you are in such an intense s exual love relationship, I don ' t think the idea can be that the vagina is j ust an ersatz for the impo s s ibl e Thing. N o, I think that it is this p arti cul a r object, but that this obj ect is strangely split. There is a s elf- distance - you know it is the vagi n a , but you get never e n ough - the split is within the object itself The split is no t b etween the e mpirica l reality and the impossible Thing. No, it is rather that the vagina is both itself and, at the s ame time, something e l s e

Kim could swear that the doctor’s voice lowered slightly, gently. Or she could just be completely paranoid. The words childhood and trauma were spoken more like a whisper. ‘No, it was in college, I think.’ The doctor said nothing. Kim spoke with a half-smile. ‘My childhood was pretty normal; loved sweets, hated cabbage, normal arguments with parents about staying out too late.’ Alex smiled at her and nodded. ‘I think it might have been the stress of exams.’ Just in time, Kim realised the doctor had used her own technique of remaining silent against her. Luckily she’d realised before she’d revealed any truth of her childhood at all. ‘You know, Kim, it’s surprising how many times you used the word “normal”. Most people say that about their childhood and yet there is no such thing unless you live in a television commercial. What did your parents do?’ Kim thought quickly and chose the sixth set of foster parents. ‘My mum worked part-time at Sainsbury’s and my dad was a bus driver.’ ‘Any siblings?’ Kim’s mouth dried and she only trusted herself to shake her head. ‘No major losses or traumatic events before the age of ten?’ Again, Kim shook her head. Alex laughed.

This is an adoptee memoir of hope and resilience. It's about loss and later finding five siblings.

Learning about love and belonging when removed from your culture and family is a long road for adoptees. Be gentle with yourself.