See the sibling

Working in pediatric palliative care has opened my eyes to the siblings. The brothers and sisters who are watching someone they love navigate a life-limiting illness while life around them changes in ways they may not fully understand.

They are not intentionally overlooked, but when one child requires more care, attention, time, and energy, the sibling can quietly become the one who is expected to be “okay.”

And I find myself thinking about what they must be grieving besides the possibility of death…

They may be grieving attention.

Normal routines.

Birthday celebrations and vacations.

Family dinners.

Friends who stopped coming over.

Parents who seem exhausted.

Predictability.

Sometimes, their own childhood.

Some feel guilty because they are healthy.

Some feel guilty because they are angry.

Some feel guilty because they wish life could just be normal again.  

They can love their sibling deeply and still resent everything the illness has taken.

Both can be true.  

But the more I witness sibling grief in pediatric palliative care, the more I recognize something much larger…  

For many of us, a sibling is one of the people we have known the longest. They are woven into our earliest memories, our family stories, our childhood, and the person we became. We might have grown up together, side by side, or life may have eventually taken us in very different directions.  

And when that sibling becomes seriously ill, approaches the end of life, or dies, the grief can carry a particular kind of ache. Not because sibling grief is greater than any other grief, but because we are grieving someone whose life has been intertwined with our own in a way that can be difficult to put into words.  

Sometimes we are grieving the person who shared our childhood. Sometimes the person who remembers our parents as we do. Sometimes the person who knew us before we became who we are now. And sometimes, we are grieving the relationship we always wished we could have had.  

I know this ache personally. I have had to say goodbye to a sister and a brother. I was very close to my sister, but my relationship with my brother was more complicated, and there was distance between us before he died.  

Neither grief is greater or smaller. Both hurt deeply. Because we don't only grieve the relationship we had. Sometimes we grieve the relationship we didn't have.  

We grieve the years apart.

The conversations that never happened.

The things we wish we had handled differently.

The apologies we didn't get to make or receive.

The memories we thought we would have more time to create.  

And when the relationship was close, we grieve the person who knew a version of us that perhaps no one else ever will.  

Sibling grief is not greater than the grief of losing a child, parent, partner, friend, or anyone else we love. It is simply its own kind of grief.  

And for twins, that connection and loss can carry yet another layer that deserves to be recognized.  

Maybe that is what I want us to understand most … to see the sibling.  

See the child sitting quietly while everyone tends to their brother or sister.

See the teenager who says they are fine because they don't want to make things harder.

See the adult watching their sibling become weaker and wondering how a person who has always existed in their world might suddenly not be there.  

And see the grieving sibling after the funeral, when everyone begins returning to their lives.

Ask about them.

Ask about their brother or sister.

Let them talk about the beautiful parts and the complicated ones.

Let them grieve what they had, what they lost, and what they never got the chance to have.

And whether it has been weeks, months, or years... especially years... remember that their grief has not faded, in fact, just the opposite... it rises to the surface, sometimes being the first thing they think about when they wake up every morning.  

If you know someone who is carrying the illness or death of a sibling, meet them a little more gently, because whether they are eight, eighteen, or eighty, somewhere inside them may be a brother or sister trying to understand how the world can possibly look the same when something so deeply connected to them has changed.  

xo

Gabby

Photo: Me, my big sister and my little brother... I miss them every single day.