GRIEF AND LIGHT

Sibling Loss and Disenfranchised Grief with Dr. Angela Dean

• Nina Rodriguez • Season 4 • Episode 93

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How does life shift when you lose the only person who shared your beginnings — your earliest memories, your inside jokes, your sense of home?

In this tender and illuminating conversation, host Nina Rodriguez sits down with Dr. Angela Dean, a licensed psychologist, thanatologist, and founder of The Broken Pack™—an organization and podcast created to validate and support adults grieving the loss of a sibling.

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Video is available here.

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After the unexpected death of her brother, Tony, Dr. Dean channeled her grief into advocacy, research, and community-building for those whose pain is often unseen. Together, Nina and Angela explore the unique nature of sibling loss, including how it impacts family dynamics, identity, and belonging, and why it remains one of the most overlooked forms of grief.

Angela shares the story behind The Broken Pack™, drawing parallels between the way wolves mourn a lost member and how humans experience the reorganization of their “pack” after a sibling’s death. The conversation moves through topics like grief expression, communication styles within families, the evolution of grief theory, and the power of enfranchising what has long been disenfranchised.

This episode invites listeners to reflect on the bonds that continue after loss, the healing potential of language and connection, and the importance of community in tending to sibling grief.

Key Takeaways

  • Sibling loss is one of the most underrecognized yet identity-shaping forms of grief.
  • After a sibling dies, family systems shift; roles, dynamics, and unspoken bonds all reorganize.
  • Grieving styles differ, even within the same family; compassion and communication can help bridge those differences.
  • The metaphor of The Broken Pack™ reminds us that when one member of the “pack” dies, the structure changes forever, but connection endures.
  • Disenfranchised grief (grief that society doesn’t fully acknowledge) can deepen isolation; naming it helps restore dignity and belonging.
  • Theories of grief are evolving, from linear “stages” to models that honor ongoing bonds, meaning-making, and the coexistence of love and loss.
  • Community and conversation are vital to healing; grief needs witnesses, not fixes.
  • The conversation closes with a reminder that even when our “pack” is broken, love continues to ripple outward through story, memory, and connection.

Guest: Angela Dean, PsyD, FT

Hosted by: Nina Rodriguez

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He's like, you're my only child. I just paused and I said, no dad, I'm not, I have a brother. So we were able to have a conversation about that, but it was super painful to hear. Cause you don't want to erase your only sibling. You don't want to erase your deceased sibling. Like he's still my brother. My relationship with him is different.

You just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief-colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. How does life shift when you lose the only person who shared your earliest memories, your inside jokes, your sense of home? Today, I'm joined by Dr. Angela Dean, a licensed psychologist.

fanatologist and founder of The Broken Pack, an organization and podcast that validates and supports adults grieving the loss of a sibling. Like some of us, Angela has lost her only sibling, Toni, an experience that reshaped her life and her work. And out of that heartbreak, she built a movement to give voice to a kind of grief that's often invisible, yet profoundly defining. Dr. Angela Dean, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Grief in Light podcast.

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you again.

Yes. And we say again, because I had the honor of being on her podcast on the Broken Pack podcast, which I'm so excited for that conversation. And we're recording this in November. So it is bereaved worldwide, bereaved siblings month. I think I got that right. This conversation absolutely does that justice. And we're here to raise some awareness. May I call you Angela for the rest of the conversation? Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Absolutely, yeah.

You are one of my favorite people in the grief space, in the grief world, if you will. Likewise. Thank you. You do such a beautiful job of talking about and addressing sibling loss in a way that is holistic from different angles because it is not defined by this one thing. So why don't we start with, where did you come up with the concept of the broken pack, which resonates with so many of us, but I would like to hear it in your own words. Where did that come from?

Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully this won't be too long of a story. My brother died in 2020 and I knew doing what I do as a psychologist that I eventually wanted to do something in this space of grief around sibling loss and I wasn't sure when it would be the time, but it was nearing my parents 50th anniversary and he was born on their first wedding anniversary. So,

It was May of 2022. And I was driving down the road trying to figure out what to do and sort of that, it still sort of pandemic rules. What am I going to do for their anniversary without my brother here? It's like a bittersweet kind of day, their 50th anniversary. And I was driving down the road and I saw this billboard and it had a wolf on it. And I was like, okay, well, at the time I wasn't sure what I believed in signs and connection and continuing bonds. I wasn't sure where I fell with that, but my brother loved wolves. So I was like,

Well, okay. And then I saw a few more signs of wolves and things. I live in Pittsburgh. It's not like we have a wolf population that is running wild here. So it's like, that's weird. And it started to feel like the right time to do something. And so I decided I wanted to create this organization. It's growing. have big plans for it, but what am I going to name it? Right. And that was really what you're asking. How did I come up with this name? And Tony always loved wolves. He had...

wolf drawings, a whole bunch of wolf figurines. In fact, my mom said that in his bed when he died was this wolf pillow that he'd had probably since we were teenagers. And so I started looking into wolves and then I learned very quickly that wolves in their pack, when they lose a packmate, usually a sibling, they're structured a lot with the parents and then sibling mates in their pack as I understand it. And I'm not a zoologist. So this is just what I had to read.

and understand it to be. And when one of the sibling mates dies in the pack, pack mate, the wolves are seen to grieve from six weeks to six months, which is their lifespan a pretty long time. And their how changes and they don't play as much and their behaviors change and they keep going back to the place where the wolf died. And I was like, wow, that's, that's pretty fitting if you think about their pack has changed.

there's still a pack, but it's not the way that it was supposed to be. And so the broken is about that structure, that family structure having changed, which as I've talked to a lot of greeting people myself and my own life, that family structure is changed when we lose someone and a sibling is in a different way than other losses. So it felt fitting to call it the broken pack. People do ask me if it is about us being broken as siblings and that's not at all. It's more about the structure.

Thank you so much. That is a beautiful analogy that deeply resonates. And I did not know all those fun facts, including the fact that they're, I believe you said they're how changes for the period of time that they're mourning and the fact that they are so sentient about that change. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, I know when Tony died, I had this like visceral like sound come out of me. And I wouldn't say was howling in the public place that I was, but it was definitely, you know. Yeah.

You touched on changing family dynamics. That's part of the ripple effect of the loss, and especially with siblings, because it may look different for everybody, but very generally speaking, we lose our sibling and also a dynamic with our parents. if you have other siblings with your other siblings, and that ripples out. So how has that dynamic changed for you?

It's been interesting for sure. mean, my brother was in the process of getting divorced when he died. And so our closeness was getting back to where it had been. And then our parents, it's how it was my parents and just me and him. I think initially it felt like we were tighter and closer. It was also right before the pandemic and then through the pandemic. And I found myself

calling my parents multiple times a day, making sure that they were okay and they don't use cell phone. They don't use them well. I felt myself obsessively calling them, right? And then I would say it has shifted and that it has brought my relationship with my dad a lot closer. I can see how it's impacted my parents. Are they the parents that I had before? I mean, physically, yes, of course, but no. their grief is very present even when we're not talking about it or we're-

not talking about Tony. And so I feel like in some ways it was I typically taking care of them in the way that a lot of siblings do. I would say no with my father. I think sometimes with my mom, my father has also lost two siblings and

I think in some ways that actually brought us closer. He's able to understand what I'm going through and I had a different respect for the same story that I've heard my whole life about him losing his brother that I didn't, wasn't someone I knew. So I didn't realize the impact of it sadly until I lost Tony. I don't know that answers your question.

It does because it's just something that unfolds so differently for each person and then it looks different over time. Interesting that it brought you closer to your dad. Did you speak openly about grief before the loss of Tony or was that just very taboo in your family?

We absolutely talked about grief and loss and from the time I was probably a baby, I think partly because of my dad's brother. There was this altar to him in my grandparents' house that I never really understood. So his picture, my parents, my dad's from Italy. His parents had, they're very Catholic. They were very Catholic and they had,

certain saints there, statues of them and candles. And it was in hindsight quite beautiful, but it took up a large portion of the family room of my grandparents' house. So there was this presence there, even if we weren't talking about it. I thought it was really normal when I was in elementary school to talk about having gone to funerals because that was just something we did. And I quickly realized that my friends had no idea what it was.

talking about. And then my grandmother had cancer for decades and I had a cousin who had a terminal illness. So there was often talk about from my grandmother who she's also the one that found her son, my dad's brother, murdered. So she often said about my cousin, I should be the one, I should be the one who dies next. I should be the one sick. And she had carried that with her. And so death and illness was very present. I mean, one year we had 13 funerals and two of those

were first cousins and then one was my aunt. So yes, it was always there. you.

I'm sorry for what? Yeah, no, I'm... I could see it being helpful for it to be something that's just present. You perhaps don't really understand it, but as you grew up and you get some context about what those altars mean and how we hold space for our beloved who are no longer with us, how that could be helpful. But 13 funerals is quite a bit, especially at a younger age.

weren't all super close, but they were within like, they were all mostly at the same funeral home too.

No, that's still a lot. And how, if at all, did that shape your decision to go into your current field of work, if it did at all? And then perhaps explain what is Thanatology to those who may not be familiar with that term.

Yeah, for sure. I came into this, this is my third career. I was a set designer and then I worked in IT. I know I'm a psychologist slash thanatologist. I always love to help people. And I know that's a very cliche thing to say, why did you get into this field? It's not entirely the only reason. My grandmother, who I was really close with, did have a good influence on that, way of connecting with people and supporting people and helping, meeting them where they were.

and that became actually very apparent at her funeral. As I started to look into becoming a psychologist, my original reason, I was going to be an art therapist, and then I wanted to work with victims of human trafficking. And for reasons probably irrelevant to this conversation, I chose not to do that. And I ended up working in cancer and oncology. And I was a psychologist in a cancer center, actually during the pandemic. And there's a lot of death and non-death loss in that world of

chronic illness. it probably did. Losing Toni, yes, probably influenced where I am today, but losing my cousin and her being sick our whole life is really influential. Why I was comfortable in doing the work that I did with chronic illness. In fact, I'm old enough that when we did reports in elementary school, you had to like handwrite them and then you had to make a pretty cover. And I recently found this report that I had done on

Thalassemia, which was the disease she had. So I was really fascinated and wanting people to get better and heal and understand the impact of grief and loss on people's lives from just a really early age. So that is probably how I became a psychologist. And then shifting to Thanatology, when Tony died, I was working at the Cancer Center. He died about three weeks before the US shut down for the pandemic. you know, I did what many.

grieving people do while waiting for funeral services and autopsies and all of the things. I went back to work and I promptly left after seeing a couple of patients because grief in a cancer center, whether it was death or non-death, was very present. And then what I did was, as a psychologist with access to academic journals, was to go see what research is out there on sibling loss, what books are out there on sibling loss. And there was very little. My dear friend Christina Zampatella's article was

probably the only really helpful one for adults. It was based on her dissertation, and then this was a couple years later. So I think that her article is from 2011 and she identified siblings and the grief around it. It's been a while since I've read it, but in so many words, I don't remember if she used the Dr. Delka's disenfranchised grief term, but she was explaining that, you know, like how grieving siblings exist in the world. She was writing about the disenfranchised grief of being an adult sibling lost survivor and that

really stuck with me because as you know many of us who've had this experience find as many people started asking me about my parents and make sure I took care of my parents and all those things and I love my parents of course I want to support and take care of them and it was like well I'm not seen so her article was helpful and then a lot of the articles were on children or

helping parents understand children's grief around the sibling death and childhood, all very important work, but it wasn't helpful as an adult grieving. And a lot of the other things that I found were anecdotal, which wasn't entirely what I needed at the time because I intellectualized things. And so I was looking for professional literature. Well, how, does this mean and how can I, you know, put aside my emotions as I do. And so that is when I started to realize this is what I

This is how I want to make an impact. And as I was doing that, you know, I started the podcast, I started the organization, I was doing a bunch of things. And in my early podcast episodes, I talk about healing, which makes me absolutely cringe now. And so I started to learn more about death and dying and grief because most people in our field don't have a lot of training on that, even though I was doing a lot of that work already. And then I learned about the Association for Death Education and Counseling. I promise I'm getting to your answer coming back.

to answer your entire question.

This is very helpful because it's a journey that is familiar to many of us who were looking for answers and couldn't find any, especially around that time.

You're welcome. So I found the Association for Death Education and Counseling. It's called ADEC for short, and they have a lot of literature. do death education. There's a lot of the, many of the theorists that we talk about in grief and loss are members. It's a smaller organization. It's my professional home now. I absolutely love it. And they, um, certified that you can become certified in Thanatology or a fellow in Thanatology. And Thanatology is the study of

death, dying and bereavement. And I would add probably loss in general to non-death and death loss. I've had the pleasure of talking to Dr. Doka about disenfranchised grief there and Dr. Bob Niemeyer, who I'm also doing training with. And so this became my professional identity for sure. And I am loved to learn and I want to do this right and I want to make a difference. And so that is how I ended up becoming a Thanatologist.

Thank you for that arc of how one thing led to another because first of all, I resonate with so much of what you said. This is not my first career. This is like my third. Same thing. I live my life in seasons, if you will. Like what am I being called to do in this season of my life? And definitely grief work has been so present for the same reason. So I share a lot of that in common with you and you're absolutely right. Like 2020, you know, I lost my brother February, February, goodness, September of 2019.

my goodness, 2019. I have all my dates mixed up today, my goodness. So it was only a few months before you lost Tony. And at that time I do remember just searching the internet, all the corners, all the groups, all the things. Really was not much. So I'm glad you found that research paper with aiming what is, and also we need so much more. We need so much more conversation around it, so much more research context.

Because actually, I'll let you answer this. In your opinion and with what you've gotten to know through your professional work and your personal life, what makes sibling loss so unique and so different than perhaps other losses?

It's a great question. I think it speaks to the sibling relationship and I'm not the first person to say this, so I'm not going to take credit for this at all. But the sibling relationship is really the only relationship this is meant to be from our birth to old age. I've had discussions with friends about this who have lost friends and I understand friend loss is also a disenfranchised loss. certainly you can have friends that feel close and you have cousins, right?

that also are probably there for that entire duration, but it's different. So with a sibling, you're there, you understand what it's like to grow up in the same circumstances, the same household. For the most part, of course, there are exceptions to that. You grow up, you have children, you meet your spouses at some point after that, but you have all of this history. So even if you have a expectedly closer relationship with your spouse,

It's different, right? For a lot of obvious reasons, but the spouse may or may not be there the rest of your life. Go into marriage hoping that, or partners, right? But that may or may not be true, and they weren't there for those early years. And then if everything happens in order, you are bearing your parents together, you're having all of the milestones, the births, the deaths, the anniversaries, the religious markers, education, all of those things, you're witnessing that.

together for yourself, your children, nieces, nephews, all of the things. And then you age and you're not supposed to lose your sibling until then. So I think the uniqueness of the sibling relationship, regardless of if you lose that person in childhood, which is work that our organization is starting to expand into, or old age, it is a loss of past, present, and future. And whereas parents are past and

present, but you don't expect them to be in the future or losing a spouse is usually present in future. Certainly you have a past, but not in the same way.

I think I rambled, but hopefully that answered your question.

I love it. You said it perfectly. And yeah, there are life's witness, if you will, from the very beginning. doesn't necessarily even imply you need a good relationship with your sibling. I know a lot of siblings are estranged or they have contentious relationships with each other. It's just the fact that they are an expected constant in your life from beginning to end. And when that changes, it really reshapes how we show up in the world. And also talk about your experience as losing your only sibling.

and how that's different. Go ahead.

I will do that, but that just triggered for me. said that about the witnessing that there was this moment when I missed having my only sibling because my mom had had surgery. I went to the hospital to see her and she had recently also had cataract surgery and wasn't wearing glasses and no longer needs them.

And she looked so much like her mother that it was like looking at my grandmother. But I don't have any cousins on that side of the family. And so I was like, I really just wanted to reach out to my brother and talk to him about that. And so what I did was called my cousin on my dad's side, who in some ways had met my mom's family and knew my relationship and

Again, probably the closest other relationship that is supposed to be here forever. And we've lost a couple cousins together and I remember calling her and she was as supportive as she could be, but I hung up actually more devastated that I had called her not because she wasn't lovely and loving and supportive and all of the things, but because that's not her mom and that's, you know, not her grandmother. Like she had no way of relating to what I was.

saying in the same way. And so I didn't have another sibling to even call about that. And I don't know what it's like to lose one sibling and have more. And I'm not going to say it's harder because I don't believe we should compare grief at all. It's just different, right? Like at one point, my dad called me an only child. He's like, you're my only child. I just like paused and I said, no dad, I'm not. I have a brother. He's like, but Tony's dead. I was like,

Dad, you have three siblings, one of them's living. And so we were able to have a conversation about that, but it was super painful to hear because you don't want to erase your only sibling. You don't want to erase your deceased sibling. Like he's still my brother. My relationship with him is different, but I do watch people struggling with their parents aging or having lost a parent and they talk about either the support or the arguments that they've had.

with their siblings. I'm kind of jealous of that. Sure, it probably wouldn't have been easy to clean out my parents' house when I tried that. Actually, my parents.

Hopefully my mom doesn't love him. They're a little bit of hoarders. And so Tony and I used to argue about whose problem it was going to be. I joke now, he won that argument. You know, for better or worse than that, I kind of get envious of other people that have siblings or that they're arguing with their siblings or they're not talking to them or they're estranged. I, know, doing what I do, I understand all of the reasons that you might need to break off a relationship or that they're not all perfect, but I get so envious of it.

Anyway.

same, same, same. you know, I giggled when you said he won that argument because it's, you can't help but laugh. It's like, geez, we're the ones stuck with this situation now. And it's interesting you bring that up. asked my parents to please lighten the load. I was like, please just remember that I'm going to, in the natural order of things, assuming it goes that way.

I will be left with all your stuff. whenever they're like, what do you think if I should get? I'm like, is it something I'm going to have to get rid of? Then don't get it. Or dispose of it first. Please handle that. But it is something that, as the remaining child, and I'm sorry that you were on the receiving end of that. I'm sure your dad didn't mean it in a hurtful way. And yet those comments can cut so deep.

I shared my own story in the episode on your podcast, so I'll link that if people are curious. I'm curious if you are okay sharing about what unfolded in that conversation with your dad, because that's part of the redefining our sense of identity after loss, especially if you lost your only sibling or if you're a twin and you lost your twin. That leaves you wondering, am I still their sister or their brother? Am I still a twin? Am I still their sibling?

I'm curious what you could share about that conversation or maybe a takeaway that was helpful to you.

I think the conversation would have probably been very different if my dad couldn't have related to it having lost two siblings. His brother was murdered in Italy before they came to the US. So that was decades ago. He still gets tearful.

when he talks about his brother and he can remember this pillow fight that they were so they were planning to have the next day or something. So if he hadn't been able to relate to that, I think the conversation would have been really different. I think what really made the point to him was saying, I don't want to erase my brother. Right. And I think that got through to him. Ironically, my mom, who's an only child has never called me an only child.

or would never think of that.

That's interesting.

Yeah. So I think the conversations for people is very different. And I think knowing where you stand on that, do you talk about your sibling in the past tense or the present tense? Does it go back and forth? Does that change depending on the context in which you're speaking? Knowing where you stand with that can help you advocate for that, I think.

That is what matters most. Sure, these comments can be hurtful, but if you know where you stand on it, sometimes it's easier to decide if is it worth my energy to teach about this right now or is it just gonna internalize my irritation and anger about it, right? If a stranger would say that to me, I'd be like, that's really not another business. But it was important for me to have that conversation with my dad to make sure that it was.

Not something that he would say again.

I could definitely appreciate that. And it is a very personal decision how much energy we decide to invest in either educating or explaining and if it's worth it. But in the case of your dad, sounds like it was a productive conversation. And it's something that you clarified for yourself. Like you said, you need to know where you stand on things. And I'm curious in your experience, do you use present tense with Tony or how does that work for you?

For me, it depends on the circumstances. I usually use present tense, but then sometimes that confuses people, so I'll go to past tense. I'm teaching a grief counseling course right now, and I made it very clear that there's no way to teach this class without talking about my own grief as well, partly to normalize things. And so in that class, I will use past tense because I don't want to get emotional, right?

With friends, it depends on if they knew him or not. If I'm just talking to friends that I'm close with or family, I think I do use present tense often. It also depends on my mood, to be honest with you, or the dates, right? It's much harder around anniversaries for me personally to talk about him in the present tense because it feels like it invalidates what has happened or makes it feel less real. So I don't... I said I think I do...

present tense, but now that I'm talking, think maybe it's about evenly split.

Thank you for sharing that and I do like sharing those perspectives from different guests because one pain point I keep hearing is what slipped that they're not here anymore and I'm talking about them as if they're here. And if you're watching or listening, I just want to normalize that that's okay. know, like, or whether you just forgot momentarily, especially in early grief, or if you choose to talk about them in present tense or past tense or depending on the circumstance, it's all okay. know, it's...

part of the grieving process and it can be very personal to each of us. And before, you know, we move on to other subjects, I do want to give you a chance to talk about who were Angela and Tony together, who was Tony and maybe share a little bit about his light and who he was and how you would like him remembered.

Thank you for asking that. I was actually just thinking about this. I happened upon one of my early reels in which I read something someone had sent me a couple months after he died. And she explained this laugh that he had so well that ironically as a sister, I don't think I could have put that into words. And my grief, he was very lighthearted and he loved.

laugh and he loved to tell like a joke and use sarcasm that was I used to joke that's like the third language in our family. He was fun loving but he really cared about people and he was quiet about that but it was there. He was always the big brother that took care of me looking out for me. Some ways that I didn't even know until after he died and I do find myself I'm talking about him in past tense I just noticed that. He's still very much there and looking out for me too. Yeah.

Are you saying you feel bad in unseen ways maybe or?

Sometimes scene ways, think it was before we even started recording you mentioned my hair being curly and I would get back and forth between wearing it curly and straight but that is actually one of the continuing bonds that I just don't fight. He had beautiful curly hair and actually got so mad at him after he died because I didn't know how to make the curls look pretty that I was like, why did you teach me that? Right? So I made sure.

I started to figure out how to do the curls.

For the record, was admiring your beautiful curly hair. Yeah. Thank you. And I love that that is a point of continued bonds for you, even in this conversation. I love that.

Yeah, so that's who he was. He was 22 months older than me. So at his funeral, I said, my mom kind of scolded me after the fact, but we were still at the funeral home and they gave us a chance to speak there, not at the mass itself. I said he was my first friend and my first enemy, which was true. Like we would, we wouldn't.

I was just sibling rivalry. I think the story that shows just who we were though is the story that I've, you know, we have mutual listeners. They've heard this story before, but I got lost on Virginia beach. was probably six or eight. I actually have no idea how old I was. I was tiny and I was picking seashells. We were just walking along the shore, putting seashells in the bucket and I had

looked up, but I couldn't find my family and I just was sobbing. I was at the lifeguard station and it was my brother who found me and he just gave me a big hug. He was a good hugger and he told me everything was going to be okay. And then our parents came and found us. And that is how I remember that story. And I remember him rescuing me and taking care of me and telling me everything was going be okay. And I told my mom that story and she said,

I told him he was going to be in trouble if he didn't go find you. I'd like to drop that part from my memory. I don't know what his motivation was, but he made me feel safe.

That's a beautiful story and that definitely feels like the essence of the sibling bonds. Is that what you miss most about him?

I miss his laughter and there was a period of time where we weren't as close right before he died and we had started to reconnect in the last 68 months and then definitely in the last two weeks. And so what I miss is those opportunities. He was looking forward to a whole bunch of family traditions later that year. So his absence was very present.

because we had talked about it.

The was very present. The absence is a presence in and of itself. And speaking of family traditions, it's November, it's end of the year. It's like the happiest, saddest time of the year, full of traditions. Is there something that you practice in your family as part of your traditions in honor of Tony or have your traditions shifted? If so, how?

We do the Feast of Seven Fishes, but there's the twist of 13 dishes. 13 is lucky where my dad is from. So you have to eat 13 different dishes and they have to have at least seven fishes. I do remember Tony and I getting in trouble one year because I was like, if we don't eat these things, baby Jesus won't, it won't matter because he already cried 2000 years ago and I got in trouble for that.

both thought the same thing, I just said it louder. But at that tradition, I don't have any idea why he loved mussels and that would be part of my grandmother would make sure that they were there. And I think they're disgusting. We did not agree on that. But my mom and my aunt make sure that there are some mussels for my brother. I still don't eat them. I tried.

I just can't do it. Yeah, they're there for him. Yeah. So I think that's one of the ways we incorporate him.

That's beautiful. it's sometimes in those little unseen ways that are obvious to us as their siblings or their relatives. Like maybe if you have a guest, they wouldn't know. But it's the fact that we know and he's there and his presence is there. it's your family made it a point to include that four, So that's very beautiful. And putting on your Dr. Dean hat here for a second, talk to us about navigating sibling loss in your work.

What have you found or have you found something unexpected and surprising about the uniqueness of sibling loss and how to navigate it?

I think with changes in family dynamics, it's really important to have communication and to understand that not everybody in your family is grieving the same person the same way. So just as unique as you had a relationship with your brother, your relationship with him was different than your parents, right? And so you're grieving him differently than your parents. But also if you do have other siblings, their relationship was.

different and I know neither you nor I can truly understand that from a first person perspective, but everyone's relationship is different and so everyone's grief and love is going to be different. And then if we add on top of that, so not only did Dr. Doca identify disenfranchised grief, he and Terry Martin also have a theory on grieving styles. And there's a whole long story about what that was and how it developed into what it is today.

Primarily, was intuitive grievers who are what we typically think of and see in the media, the emotional grievers. And then there's the instrumental grievers who grieve by doing. And then there's the splendid grieving style. Maybe we do both of those. And then there's a dissonant grieving style, which doesn't fit into any of that. But I bring that up to say, I think in my work, it has been very apparent that emotional grievers expect everyone to...

Emotionally grief and instrumental grievers are like, you're like crying too much. like, I haven't cried yet and my family expects me to cry. Like something's wrong. And then maybe there's a blending of that, which is where I fall. I mean, creating an organization in a podcast, instrumental way of grieving, but I also have emotional ways. So I think what is helpful in those family dynamics and understanding grief is to understand.

My mom might be an emotional griever, an intuitive grieving style, and I might not be. It doesn't mean that either of our grief is right or wrong. And just having that communication and giving people words to validate that, that there's no wrong way to grieve, can help people connect and grieve together and support one another instead of dividing. Yeah.

So I think that is one of biggest takeaways, is just understanding everyone's different.

That's huge because it can feel so hurtful if you're an emotional griever and then your family is not. And that feels like a point of disconnection or can feel like a point of disconnection. So I love that you brought that up because it is instrumental to understand that everybody grieves differently and it's not just a catchphrase. It is really truly, we each have our own dynamics and even our own timing. Even if you're, you know, emotional, maybe you're not emotional at the same time as your partner or your sibling or your parents.

Now, I'm curious about your opinion on this. We always hear there's no wrong way to grieve, which literally just said it, everybody grieves differently. And yet you see these posts on social media about like, never say at least and never do this and never do that. It feels like a little bit of a contradiction for somebody who perhaps is new to grieving or somebody who's trying to support, right, as a sibling who's lost a sibling.

where's that middle ground where there's quote unquote no wrong way to grieve and also there are certain things that we could do to help somebody in a supportive way.

Yes, I'm glad you brought that up. I used to have a snarky line of grief cards for this reason. Partly inspired by my brother's snarky, sarcastic sense of humor.

Another way to carry him forward, yes.

Yeah. And it was formulated based on these stupid things that people say to grievers. And for multiple reasons, I don't have that out there anymore. While there's no wrong way to grieve, I do think that we have to see that people are usually well-intentioned in what they are saying to you. It doesn't mean that those aren't painful things to hear. Like if I say, well, at least

he didn't suffer or at least whatever follows that. That's invalidating the person's experience in front of you. So I don't know that that speaks to is there a wrong way to grieve? I think because we are such a grief illiterate society in a lot of ways, we don't know what to say. We just want to fix it and make it better. And we can't do that. I can't bring your brother back and you can't bring my brother back.

and we want to fill the space versus meeting people where they are. I think when we say there's no wrong way or right way to grieve, there is a diagnosis called prolonged grief disorder, which I struggle with because I don't believe grief is diagnosable. But I do think that people can get stuck in a way that needs a different level of support and help. I don't think it's to say that they are grieving incorrectly. I do think it's to say that

that they just need some support to figure out how to live with the loss. So I truly stand by there is no wrong way to grieve. I do think that there are some wrong ways to provide support and invalidation, but that said, you and I are doing it. That we're in this space trying to educate people. Maybe there are better things to say. And if you say them, and in the past, I certainly probably said some of those same unhelpful things. I think we can learn from that.

And we can validate and teach people what is helpful, what is not. And if those things are said to you, choose how you respond. What are you comfortable with in the moment? Again, we don't have to educate in every moment and we can set healthy personal boundaries for ourselves to, know, well, maybe that person won't understand and they won't be able to be supportive. But, you know, I heard that they were at least trying. They were trying to say, and there I said at least, right?

They're trying and I want to see that maybe they didn't know what to say, but at least.

They're present, if they are.

Yeah, sometimes the silence is more hurtful. in your answer, I heard meeting people where they're at, extending grace to yourself and the people trying maybe imperfectly and, you know, speaking up for what you need and those boundaries or not speaking up when you don't feel like it. So those are very helpful tips, definitely. And thank you for that discernment between there's no right or wrong way to grieve, but there is like a better way to support people in grief.

Yeah, definitely.

And with your podcast, though, podcaster hat on now, I want you to delve a little bit deeper about why did you decide to focus it mainly and uniquely on sibling loss.

I wanted to make sure we are validating and connecting people in this space in a way that supported them and helped them.

share their story and feel heard, but also to share the story of their siblings. There are many other podcasts out there talking about grief that aren't only sibling grief. And so I wanted to focus on sibling loss because the number of people that have reached out and said, I felt heard in that. Like I wasn't able to talk about this. This is, like you said, we're recording in November. It's World Brave Siblings Month.

That is a mouthful. Last year, we had a event locally in which we were at Bella Terra Stables. It's a therapeutic horse farm near here. And there was a woman that showed up and her sibling had died decades ago. There were actually a couple there, but their siblings had died decades ago.

In some ways it was the first time they were talking about it or first time that they felt other people understood it. And that is why I focused on sibling law to enfranchise the disenfranchised grief of sibling loss.

And thank you for doing so. I've listened to some of your episodes. There was one I was just in tears because not only, you know, my bereaved sister heart hurt for this fellow bereaved sister, but it's like she was speaking about my experience as well. And I've never met her and there's something so validating, so incredibly healing, so connecting and life-affirming about

Yeah.

listening to these conversations and knowing you are not alone. And it's so cliche, but when you have those moments when you really feel like, wow, I am not alone in this, because loss can make you feel like you're literally the only person in the history of ever to go through the loss of a loved one. And yet it happens all the time. It happens every day.

The Sibling Loss Experience is a very unique experience. It's not harder or less hard than others. It's just unique because of all the elements that we've just discussed and then some. So thank you so much because of the podcast. I definitely wish I had in 2019, 2020, 2020, know, like the early year, especially those early years that are so incredibly disorienting and you're doing amazing work through your podcast. And I know you want to.

extend, you're very welcome. I know you want to extend beyond the podcast and there's more that you have planned for The Broken Pack. please share, A, where they can find information about The Broken Pack and your work and how to connect with you. And also, what's your vision? Where do you see this?

me add if I could. In the podcast, I wanted to make sure that we're talking not just about the loss, that we're talking about who the sibling is. So I appreciate that you asked me who Tony and Angela were, although he never called me Angela.

What did he call you?

these. Either Angie, which I absolutely hate, or Julie. that was, well, thank you. Or Sis, right? Like very rarely called me by my full name. And so part of the purpose was let's not just talk about how they died. I do ask about that, of course, but I wanted to make sure we heard how they lived and what the memories are because it validates in sibling loss. You're not asked about these things. You're not asked to talk about the person.

Beautiful.

Yes, I have a pretty big vision for the broken pack. It's in the process of changing what that vision is. So I'm going to hold off on saying too much, but the major vision is to educate not only the public, which we're doing, but also to educate professionals like myself. We don't get a lot of training in grad school on grief and loss, especially on sibling loss. So there is a education.

component to that, and I do plan to develop more in-person activities and virtual supports. I'm a little limited for professional ethics reasons on what I can do, and so I've found some ways that we're going to provide some more support in that way, and so that will involve some growth and some other upcoming things. I know it's a big answer.

definitely much needed information and conversations, both personally and professionally.

So the website is thebrokenpack.com. I'm pretty active. Well, I wasn't really active for about the last year and a half because of grief hit me hard this last year. But the Instagram, the Broken Pack, fairly active there and will be here more so as we release the next season of the podcast, which we will be on. And there's a TikTok, but I'm not really active on the TikTok. And then the podcast is the Broken Pack.

I think it's still currently called the Broken Pack, Stories of Adult Sibling Moss. We're probably going to drop the adult piece in there. It's pretty much on every platform except Substack. So if you search for the Broken Pack, you will find us.

And of course, that's going to be linked in the show notes. And I love where this is all evolving because so many of these conversations were not even taking place literally five years ago. So it's very recent and it feels like there's this collective desire to speak about these experiences because it's a shift and a change from the past dynamics where we were expected or perhaps even our parents' generations were expected to just stuff it down and

What is it? Keep calm, carry on, like that kind of thing. So where do you see or do you see this dynamic shifting in a new direction? I'm guessing that's part of the work that you're doing. And I'm envisioning a timeline here between Freud and like today, right? Like the evolution of grief, right? How we've evolved. Talk to us about where it came from, where we are, and where do you see this all going? Start wherever you'd like. I know that's big question.

to be brief on that.

Give us the whole history of Greek theory, please, in a few minutes.

Well, the very brief part of that you mentioned Freud and Freud truly believed that we had to disconnect from lost people. In order to be healthy, he believed we had to separate from that. So basically, I won't say forget them that. Ironically, he was a grieving person and I think maybe hopefully he changed his thoughts on that. anyway, he published this idea of decathesis and that's where we started. And then as much as the Kubler-Ross theory is not a theory of

grief. It's a theory of dying for people grieving their own loss. And it was sequential and it was stages and it doesn't really apply. It was helpful in the sense that it did get people talking about grief and loss. And there's quite a few steps in between there. ADEC that I mentioned before has some great resources on their website and history of all of this in there. And if we go back actually even before Freud, so jumping back just for a second, the Industrial Revolution really changed how we talk about death and dying.

in our society. People used to die at home, then the industrial revolution happened, and people started dying in hospitals or facilities. So that is actually where things started to get disconnected. And now we're in a pretty grief-illiterate society here in the Western world. And then over the course of time, know, Docha and Niemeyer and Kloss had a whole bunch of different theories. But the key thing is how do we stay connected?

So continuing bonds with class and that feeds a little bit into some of the more modern theories. Dr. Bob Niemeyer, who is my mentor and I'm training with, really helps us find how do we reconstruct our narratives and our stories so that we can live with this loss and find meaning. And it doesn't have to be a big meaning. It doesn't have to be start an organization or start a podcast, but how do you find that meaning in your loss?

And so I think that's where we are and I think that we'll continue to evolve in that from a sibling loss perspective. I do think this conversation, like we wouldn't be having this conversation. I remember learning about you and seeing your work early on and I felt connected because we were grieving those early days even though we didn't know each other at the same time. We lost our brothers very close. So we're starting to have these conversations. I was quoted in an article in the Atlantic not long ago.

and then I've recently seen, you know, Anderson Cooper has talked about his sibling loss and Stephen Colbert and even just recently shout out to Pittsburgh native, Jeff Goldblum. Yes. Recently talked about his sibling loss. My mom actually said to me this weekend, you should have him on your podcast. Cause it's just that easy to get these folks. Yeah. If they're listening, you want to be on the podcast? Any of them I've been trying. Yeah. So.

Right

I think the conversations are happening and what I love about most of this online group community, whether it's Instagram or these podcasts and this technology changes, I imagine that will also transform with that. But what I love about this, especially in the sibling loss world is that we're starting to build community, right? I'm not competing against your podcast. We're trying to support one another and get the word out.

80 to 88 % of the world has siblings and will experience sibling loss. Unless you're the only sibling and you die first, you're likely to experience sibling loss. So there's plenty of people to support and bring in here and validate and build community. And so that's what I love. And that's where I see our organization as it continues to develop to be is to

build community, build support, and work with other people like yourself that are doing that. So that's where I see it going.

I it and I do share that vision as well. It's collaborative, it's community, it's us. It's a we-us thing. Yeah, absolutely. As we have a bigger mission to make sure that other people don't experience, at least in my words, like make sure that other people don't experience the isolation and loneliness that perhaps we experienced not too long ago. And a lot of that is learning that language of grief and understanding the evolution and everything we touched on in this conversation.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I could talk to you for so long. Maybe we need to do a part later on.

Yes, I was thinking that after we were done recording ours.

Yeah, we'll do other speaking of collaborations, we'll do more. For today, maybe mention something that we haven't touched on that you would like included in this conversation. And if not, if there's nothing for the time being, then we can move on to the final question.

This is inherent in the grief work and we know this and the more that you experience grief, I think the more that you remember that you only have now.

And it's not to say that you have to go out and repair your relationships, but I do think there's a different value of how to live today that you start to experience. I would encourage people that have experienced that grief and had that feeling to reconnect with it. A lot of the work that I've done with Dr. Niemeyer is learning how to change our story so that it helps us move forward. So don't be so stuck.

on things, relationships or beliefs that are keeping you from living and connecting with the people the way that you value and cherish.

That is a beautiful and powerful message that gives us hope, that gives me hope. And absolutely, we are the stories that we internalize and that can shift. also have the power to shift them. So maybe we'll touch on that in the next conversation. Thank you so much. My final question to you is what would Angela today say to Angela after Tony passed?

It's always gonna be hard. And you will find the people to support you.

Let yourself feel these feelings.

Thank you so much. It has been an absolute honor. Thank you so much for this conversation, for the work you do, and for being you.

Thank you for having me and thank you for the work you do as well.

That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight. you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you. And always remember, you are not alone.


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Nina Rodriguez

Host
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Dr. Angela Dean

Guest