Dead Sibling Society (Part 1)

 If you lose a spouse, you’re a widow. If you lose your parents, an orphan. But we don’t have the language for someone who lost a sibling – your first friend, your first ally, your first enemy (probably, at least temporarily). Grief always feels like a gut punch, but losing a sibling is a unique kind of pain that we don’t talk about enough. 

So today, I’m joined by Steph Wittels Wachs, former TTFA guest and sister of comedy legend Harris Wittels, who died in 2015 of an accidental overdose. We’re talking about what losing a sibling means and sharing the notes, advice and insights from people who know what it’s like to live in the world without their siblings.

Cited in this episode:

Rogne, S., Grotta, A., Liu, C., Berg, L., Saarela, J., Kawachi, I., Hiyoshi, A., & Rostila, M. (2025). All-cause mortality around the anniversary of a sibling’s death: findings from Swedish National Register Data. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwaf213 

Tatjana Gazibara, Katherine A Ornstein, Christina Gillezeau, Melissa Aldridge, Mogens Groenvold, Merete Nordentoft, Lau Caspar Thygesen, Bereavement Among Adult Siblings: An Examination of Health Services Utilization and Mental Health Outcomes, American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 190, Issue 12, December 2021, Pages 2571–2581, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwab212 

Davidson, D. (2018). Sibling loss – disenfranchised grief and forgotten mourners. Bereavement Care, 37(3), 124–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/02682621.2018.1535882  

Herberman Mash, H. B., Fullerton, C. S., & Ursano, R. J. (2013). Complicated Grief and Bereavement in Young Adults Following Close Friend and Sibling Loss. Depression & Anxiety (1091-4269), 30(12), 1202–1210. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22068    

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

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Hi.

Hi.

Hi there. Hi.

Hi. Hey, Nora.

I’m Nora McInerny, and this is Thanks For Asking, a call-in show about what matters to you. Siblings are our first friends, our first allies, for some of us, at least occasionally and temporarily, hopefully our first enemies. We fight, okay?

But we also share, we share our toys, we share our holidays, our experiences, our memories. We might share rooms, DNA. We might share secrets, our dreams.

Siblings are our longest relationships. These are the people who have known us longer than our friends and our spouses and who will be with us long after our parents die. Unless, of course, that doesn’t happen.

The death of a sibling is one of the most fundamental, most profound losses that a person can experience. And every loss forces a change in identity, but I think especially sibling loss.

If you lose your only sibling, are you still a brother or a sister? I think so, but I’ve never had to ponder that or explain it to anybody. If you lose one sibling, how many siblings do you have?

Sibling loss, regardless of when in a person’s lifespan it happens, is associated with all kinds of health issues, from depression to cardiovascular disease to an increased risk of suicide, stroke, mortality, real fun stuff.

And this is all to say that it’s not in your head. It’s real. What you’re feeling is real.

What you’re experiencing is real. Broken heart syndrome is real. Sometimes you feel like you could die of a broken heart because you kind of can.

And yet, sibling loss is often a form of disenfranchised grief. It’s forgotten among the other relationships to the dead person.

The emotional priority tends to go to the parent, the spouse if there was one, the children if there are children, but not the siblings, not immediately. Even in the field of grief itself, sibling loss is understudied.

Surviving siblings might mute or deprioritize their grief for the sake of other people, including their parents.

There’s a study of young adults who had lost a sibling to cancer that found that more than half of these young adults who had lost a sibling to cancer felt like they hadn’t worked through their grief even up to nine years after their sibling’s death.

And perhaps that’s because of that lack of social support, that lack of social recognition. Sibling relationships don’t have holidays to celebrate them.

On Mother’s Day, we buy flowers and we have an overpriced brunch that we had to book weeks in advance. On Father’s Day, we give our dads a tie or something to do with grilling or golf.

I don’t know why, but those are the only three categories of gifts for a dad. But there is no brother’s day. There is no sister’s day.

So if we don’t fully appreciate and acknowledge the depth and importance of sibling relationships in life, it shouldn’t be surprising that we fail to acknowledge and appreciate the depth of these losses.

A few months ago, I got an email from an old friend from high school. His name is Aaron, and Aaron was a year below me. His brother Derek was a year ahead of me.

And I need people to know, I had the biggest crush on Derek Robinson to the point where even recording this, and he was married, so it’s, I don’t know if this is appropriate. I still blush when I think about him or hear his name.

And even though I was kind of an ugly dork for a lot of high school, Derek Robinson was so nice to me. He was so nice to me. I have a photo that I took with him on the last day of school when everyone was signing yearbooks.

And you can see in my face, I will put this somewhere probably on my subject, just how overjoyed I am to have him sign my yearbook and take a photo with me. I still have that photo after 20 years.

So, Aaron wasn’t reaching out to catch up about high school. He was reaching out because his brother, Derek, had died in August of 2025, and Aaron was still having a hard time.

And if you listen to this podcast, you would say, uh, duh, Aaron, of course you’re having a hard time. It has been less than a year since your only brother died. And not just, you know, your only brother, but your best friend.

Like I’m not exaggerating when I say that watching the two of them, watching their relationship from, you know, in person in high school to afar and online in the years after, I have always hoped that my kids would have the kind of bond that Aaron

and Derek had. Like I hope that my kids are each other’s biggest fan. I hope my kids are each other’s best friend. And while I hope that they never feel this kind of loss, I actually can’t hope for that.

It’s unrealistic. I saw this TikTok that ruined my day and so I’m going to ruin yours as well. It said something like one sibling will be at every sibling’s funeral.

One sibling won’t be at any sibling’s funeral and one sibling won’t have any siblings at their funeral.

Huh.

See what I mean? That never ruined my day and now your day is ruined too. So Aaron was reaching out to see if we had any episodes about this, about sibling loss.

So Aaron was reaching out because he wanted to know if we had any episodes about sibling loss. And the fact is we have very few, which we will link in the episode description. One of them is episode 12.

I’m pretty sure. It’s old. It’s called Horrible and Wonderful and Figuring It Out Where We Meet Steph Wittels Wachs, sister of comedy legend Harris Wittels, who died in 2015 of an accidental overdose.

And that episode is how I met Steph. It’s also how Steph ended up meeting her business partner, launching her own podcast last day and eventually an entire podcast network called Lemonade Media.

And today, many years after that first podcast episode, Steph is back because I wanted to make something special for Erin and for all of the Erin’s out there. For all of the siblings who are longing for and missing their own siblings.

For everyone who feels so alone in the world without the person who knew them and love them the longest and the best. One of the hardest parts about grief is feeling like you’re pawing through a dark room, looking for a light switch.

And one of the most beautiful parts of grief is that at some point, when your eyes adjust and you know your way around, you can shine a light for other people. And that is what this episode is.

This is notes, this is advice, this is insights and hope and truly love from people who know what it’s like to live in the world without their siblings.

And before we get started, I want to tell you that when I put out this call, for all of you to chime in and tell me what you know about this experience, the response was so big that it’s going to have to be two episodes.

I don’t know when we’ll get around to the second one, but if you wrote in and you don’t hear yourself in this episode, know that we got to make a second. We got to make a second. You all were too good.

And if you hear this and you think, I have something to add to the conversation, you didn’t cover this, call me, 612-568-4441. Write in, thanks at feelingsand.co. You could also text that phone number, but here we go.

Steph Wittels Wachs, which in my phone was incorrect. I just want you to know for a long time, it was Steph Wittels Wach.

Oh, I feel like that works too.

It was disrespectful, and I’m sorry to your perfect husband.

I’m a little wack, though. I feel like I acknowledge. It feels characteristic.

I like it.

Well, anyway, Steph Wittels Wachs is your legal name. But we have not talked on the podcast in so long, so long. So it’s a little bit of a catch up.

It’s also you and I have both, I wouldn’t say, we’re not grief twins, but we’re grief cousins. We’ve been kind of like in the thick of it for a similar amount of time.

And both of us have passed a milestone that feels absolutely unimaginable in the early days, which is it has now been over 10 years since you lost Harris, who was your only sibling. Just so I can rub that in for you.

Thank you for putting that salt in that wound. I appreciate you reminding me again.

In case you forgot, you had one?

Noted.

Noted, noted. No longer do.

Had one, no longer do. Gone. Yeah.

Keep going.

Minute I saw that I had written that, I said, what, who was that for, Nora? Who was the intended audience for that? You have to remember, I’ve only been doing this for a decade.

So we’re learning a lot of new things here.

It’s good.

Good golly. Good God. But a decade, it’s wild because in some days for me, it feels like it’s been two minutes and some days it feels like it happened in another lifetime.

How is your grief today different than it was a decade ago?

In every single way, it is different. Like I, a decade ago, I did not think I would survive it. I was certain that I wouldn’t be able to go on.

I mean, there’s like very early acute, acute grief where really truly I was like, I’m not, I’m not in human form. I will never be in human form again. I will never be part of the human race anymore.

I’m, I’m just, I just am, I live in this bed and I don’t wear pants and I don’t brush my teeth and I only can smile at the baby. Otherwise I can’t, I didn’t talk to my husband for a whole year.

When he was still there, I was like, Oh my God, I’m so glad you stuck around. I haven’t talked to you in a year. I mean, I just, I just was not okay for a long time.

And then after you get out of that acute phase, I feel like which happened for me at about a year where I, where I could put on pants, I could brush my teeth. Like I could do the regular human things again.

I could see friends and like have conversations with them, but I still felt like I will never feel whole again. Like I will never feel like me again. I’m just going to walk around forever feeling like paralyzed inside.

Because like that’s the thing, right? You, the paralysis, I feel like in the immediate aftermath is all consuming. And then you get to a point where you can function and like put on your human face again.

And but you still feel inside so damaged and broken and ruined forever. And I couldn’t imagine a time where I would feel happy again. I couldn’t imagine a time where I would feel, anything other than really profoundly sad.

And I just am so happy now. Like I just, I’m so, that’s the thing. And this is the obnoxious part that I’m going to feel so bad later.

I’m going to be like, I’m going to text you and I’m going to be like, I can’t believe I said that bullshit on your podcast earlier today about gratitude. I’m like, ew.

But I do feel like these very cliche things happened around 10 years where I got to take stock and I realized that I would never have gotten to where I am now, which is this place of like true, I do what I want. I love great people.

I’m grateful for these great people. Mike and I did this very intentional move to California. You did this too.

We relocated in this way that I never would have done had I not lost Harris because I would have been too nervous and anxious and that’s not what you’re supposed to do. All the supposed to do’s have left me.

So I used to be a wired by anxiety person and I would spin out about all the possible horrible things that could happen. And now I just like do what I want. And I don’t worry about those things because I’ve experienced profound crippling grief.

So there’s a freedom in. I can’t wait to have you tell me if this is your experience too. But I feel like a different person internally wired, completely different in a way that has been really like good.

That’s like a weird thing to say.

Yeah. You know what I mean? I do know what you mean and I know why it feels weird even though it shouldn’t feel weird because on the one hand, I would never give it a menu and neither would you.

You wouldn’t be like, I’m going to take losing my brother.

But in exchange, I’m going to move to California, start a company that changes people’s lives and relationships with hard topics, reinvent myself and create a whole new life for myself and my family and yeah, seems like a pretty good trade.

Beak, I’ll take it. You would never do that, right? But you did not choose this loss.

I did not choose my losses. What we can choose is what we do next. And there is something I felt that it’s not constant, right?

Cause I still will semi-regularly lose my mind, full meltdown, you know, everything’s the worst. I can’t, I’m, I can’t do anything, but I have also experienced that clarity of, I mean, okay, like what’s the worst that could happen?

They’re not going to die again, you know?

So that is, that, that frame, what, what’s the worst thing that can happen? The company fails? I don’t care.

Okay.

What’s the worst thing that happens?

We don’t like California. I don’t give a shit. I mean, like nothing, I can’t, you can’t hurt my feelings anymore.

Life, you already did. And that is exactly it. And that freedom is so wild.

And, and yeah, it’s a, I hate that it has to be this way, but because I don’t think I would be a fully realized person in many ways. It’s bizarre.

Yeah. Or you’d be realized in some way, but it’s okay. I think this is why people love the, the concept of the multiverse so much and why Marvel is obsessed with it.

One, I mean, they don’t have to come up with anything new. You heard it here first, right? Like, guess what?

Anything that happens, there’s a rip in the time-space continuum and a new Spider-Man comes in and saves the day. Sorry to spoil every future Marvel movie for you. Yes.

But also because we’ve all experienced that. We’ve experienced this rip in reality and this new version of us, like peeling off. And so it’s kind of comforting to me to think, okay, there is a universe where Aaron’s alive, my dad’s alive.

I’m living in Minneapolis, I’m working at an ad agency. I’m stressed about making a PowerPoint for a low tier vodka brand. I won’t name names, but it’s something only sorority girls throw up.

And there’s another version of life where all of those losses happen and I make completely different choices, but here we are in this one right here. And what else can we do but be where we are?

And I’ve been on a little bit of a journey for the past year or so, trying to heal my sense of focus. It has been fragmented, fractured, blown to smithereens, might I say.

Not just by social media, I can’t blame it on that, but just by the way that we are, we, me, constantly online. I’ve got a little phone. It’s pinging.

I’m getting texts. I’m getting emails. I’m getting Slack messages that I hardly ever read.

And I’m sorry to the team for that. So imagine how excited I was, how delighted to see that Cal Newport, famous for his book, Deep Work, famous for being a person who focuses on focus.

LOL has a new to me, at least, I don’t know how new it is, but it is new to me, a masterclass called Rebuild Your Focus and Reclaim Your Time. This is made for me. What I like about this is I can listen to it.

I’m not going to get lost in my phone because I’m, you know, watching a video. I’m going to see something pop up.

You know, I know you can turn up notifications, but come on, I can listen to it while I’m, you know, walking the dog, while I’m sitting on the patio. And when I rebuild my focus, watch out, everybody, watch out.

I said this at the end of the first book I wrote, where I feel like when you experience this kind of loss, the sudden, unfair, I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t want it loss, you have, it’s like your world explodes, right?

Like a bomb is dropped on your house and the walls come down and all the comforts are gone and you’re just sitting there on rubble and nails and dust and boards and then you’re exposed and then at some point you have to decide, okay, well, I have to

rebuild this house, so where do I want to rebuild it? And what do I want the wallpap, like actually, you know what? I want wallpaper, like I was never bold enough, but now I’m going to be, I’m going to go full color.

And you know, I never liked how this thing actually happened in that other house, so I want, and then you like have this intentionality that I think you just never had before, because you were always like, this is just what my life is, I sell vodka

to sorority girls, or for me, like I teach, I’m a teacher, that’s what I do. And I never really wanted to do that, but I was like, that’s just what I do.

But then when everything gets destroyed, you’re like, well, I didn’t like that life, so I’m going to redesign a new one. And that I think is the part that you never expect.

And that if you would have asked me 10 years ago, what do you think it’s going to be like? I would have, and I said this to you, I would say slap that woman’s face. That is, put her-

5150, she get her, lock her up.

She’s done, she needs to be taken out.

But yeah, it is a thing that you don’t expect and also is a very beautiful, I’m so sorry I said that word, part of this, where, intentionality is a thing that I didn’t really have before it all came apart.

I think I had a real lack of imagination in a lot of ways. Like I was like, well, here I am, I couldn’t possibly change. I remember having a conversation stuff with somebody.

It was, I was 25. I hated my job. And I was like, if only I could change, but unfortunately I’ve invested three years.

So I guess I got to do it for another 60 and just-

This is it.

Until I die. Unfortunately, can’t change, can’t change a career after three years. That would be too hard.

So stick with it. Oh, you hate your job. My goals, I had to make a goals worksheet at that age.

And my goal was to have my boss’s job in five years. She hated her job. And then in 10 years have her boss’s job.

He hated his job. Also, I could never have that job. Only a man had that job.

What was I thinking? It was just so, I just was sort of like there. And, you know, things fall apart.

You get to choose like in many cases, what do you want to bring forward with it? And I don’t think I was extremely intentional. I’ll say that stuff, but I was almost recklessly fearless.

I was like, well, I’ll just try it. I’ll just try it. Who cares?

it. Who cares? Yeah.

Who cares? Totally. Yeah.

And again, no, not something that would have imagined 10 years ago at all. Like it would have been almost, I would have said the same thing. This woman’s insane, get her out of here.

What is your relationship with Harris like now?

I mean, he was reborn into the body of my son, so I get to hang out with him all the time.

Whenever you post it, I’m always like, whoa, okay.

My son is named Harrison. I did name my son Harris originally. Have I told you this story?

I don’t think I have. I named my son, I collectively with my husband. I didn’t unilaterally name him.

He got a say, so we decided we would name this new child Harris. And in the Jewish culture, you name your babies after dead people. This is something that you do.

And so there’s like a choice you can use the initial or you can use the full name. You know, you get to choose. There’s some leeway there.

And so I was like, well, Harris was the best person that ever lived. So I’m gonna name this boy Harris and he will be imbued with all of his great qualities and it will be a beautiful tribute to my brother.

Well, what ended up happening is the baby was born, went to the NICU for 36 hours. I call the NICU. I’m like, this is Harris’ mom.

I sob, I just start literally weeping. And I’m like, I can’t cry every time I say my child’s name. So we’re going to need to untitle him.

We’re going to need to…

Retitle.

He was untitled Wachs project on the whiteboard in the room for three days. And my mother was like…

Baby TBD.

My mother was like, y’all need to name this baby. Like, I need to post on Facebook. Name the baby.

And so I was like, oh my god, okay, I’m sorry. I just had a C-section and I’m really sore and like sad.

Fans are waiting.

Okay. Yeah.

I’m sorry, mom. So then we went with Harrison. And the funniest part, because Harrison Wachs is like a beautiful name, right?

Oh, it’s beautiful.

It is great flow. It is great flow.

Harrison Wachs. Okay. Yes.

So we named Harrison, Harrison Jules Wachs, like beautiful. And J is after Mike’s grandfather Jack and Harrison Jules. Great.

Well, the boy comes out, we call him Harry. Harry is his name. Harry is his fault.

Harry is what we call him. So we’re in the Miami airport, Mike and I, nine months in to Harry being alive and I stop dead in my tracks and I go, Oh my God. We called the baby Harry Balls Wachs.

We called the baby’s name is Harry Balls Wachs, Mike. And Mike says to me, Yeah, I told you this in the hospital.

I go, I might kill him. What?

Again, this is all happening in an airport in Miami, Florida.

And I, you just had all your, you’ve just been torn open, had all of your organs removed. They pulled a baby out of you. Then the baby went to the NICU.

You’re out of your mind. I mentioned it.

I will kill you before you die naturally. I was, I couldn’t believe it. And then Mike was Mike was sort of like, I mean, honestly, is there a better tribute to your brother than calling him Harry Balls Wax?

Like if you wanted to name the baby after your brother, calling him a dick is probably the right thing. Anyway, point is I was like, I’m changing his name. I’m going to get it.

I’m going to rename him. I can’t stand this. But then it was COVID whatever.

I never renamed the baby. So my relationship with Harris is that he is my son now. They are so similar.

There’s so much in him that I see, like his humor, his weirdness, his vocabulary. My God, there’s no one like him. He’s so strange.

And I just, I don’t know. So I feel like I have so much of Harris. I feel like my children look so much like Harris.

Yeah. Harris’ stuff is all over our house. Like he is, his stuff is everywhere.

Like I was just watching the Mark Maron documentary, which is so good. I was watching it on a plane. I forget what it’s called, but he has a suitcase full of all of his ex’s stuff.

And I was like, oh, my brother’s stuff is just everywhere. It’s on every shelf. It’s on every wall.

The guitars and everything is everywhere. His furniture is everywhere. So I always feel so tethered to his shit in a way that feels like he’s very present.

His portrait lives right outside the kids’ rooms. Like the kids talk about him and he’s just, he’s just everywhere. So I, and I know you have a very similar relationship like to Aaron.

Like it’s, he’s so present in our lives that, that I don’t, yeah, that part feels like he’s so close to us. The thing that really sucks is that, you know, we can’t make new memories is the problem. That’s the worst part.

So like, I, it’s crazy to me that he doesn’t know Harry.

Isn’t that weird? It’s so weird.

It sucks.

But Harry knows him in a way.

Harry knows him, yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I feel the same.

My mom and I went to see the one and only Tig Notara last night. She came to our fair city to perform and that, you know, Tig was a good friend of Harris’s and I love her very much. And so this morning I was recapping the show for Harry.

And I was like, and Mike said to Harry, you know, like, that’s her job is to get in front of people and make them laugh. And Harry was like, what? I was like, that’s what your brother, that’s what your uncle did.

That was his job. How cool is that? You know what I mean?

Are you not paying attention on career day?

That is, you know, like, how cool, how fun.

You know, I miss him like always in my full body all the time. And I also feel like he’s always here. And he’s like dictated every single choice that I’ve made in my life.

Honestly, like I’m obsessed with him. Like I probably should like get a life. Do you know what I mean?

Like I’m really, everything I do is like in service of him.

Like I just sent you a book that I wrote all about him and addiction and like, you know, he’s just really demanded a lot of my time and attention since more than, more than he probably would have if he was still here, which is weird. You know?

Yeah.

I don’t know.

I think it’s cool. I think it’s cool. And I think it’s also like a good example of like what it means to move forward with your grief and like what you bring with you, you know, it’s not like you are dwelling in the past.

Like your past is integrated with your present.

Yes.

I think that’s the whole point. You know, I think that’s the whole point of everybody on earth is so temporary, but there is something about us that is eternal. And that’s the way that we live on in the people who love us.

And I think it’s really special to have children and have other people, have people who never met Harris, myself included, feel like they know Harris because of you. You know?

And so even when I see your son on Instagram, I’m like, wow, that’s going to be wild for Steph, you know, like, I gave birth to my brother.

I don’t know how that happened, but it’s weird. Yeah. It’s like, okay.

Oh, my God.

Oh, man. Okay. Well, we have quite a lot of messages from other, I mean, what do you call yourselves?

You know, like, what is the community call yourself? If you’ve lost a sibling, the lost sibling losers.

Sibling losers, sibling losers, losers of siblings. I don’t think we have the dead, I’d say the Dead Brothers Club or the Dead Sibling Club. Dead Sibling, Dead Sibling.

Yeah.

Dead Sibling Society has a nice flow.

Yeah, that’s good. Dead Sibling Society. That’s good.

Yeah.

It’s elevated. You know, it’s like, you’ve been initiated. You got hazed in.

It’s like the Dead Poets Society, the Dead Sibling Society.

I like it. I like it.

You make it a society, it feels exclusive. You make it a club, a little different.

Anyone can join.

Little different. Okay, so I’m going to ask you, so we’re going to get into, I asked other people, oh, I’m going to ask you this question first.

Okay, so what was, and I don’t know, what are some of the helpful things or what was maybe like the most helpful thing that people did for you or told you when you were in that really sort of abject grief space?

I mean, I think this is probably true for Dead Sibling Society and just Dead Loved One Society. People just doing things without having to be asked is a big one.

So people would drop off food on the porch and text me and say like, foods on your porch, no need to respond, you know? Wouldn’t text me to be like, what can I do for you, bruh?

How would I know?

I don’t know. How would I know?

How would I know your skill set, your availability, your timeline? I’ve never eaten anything in my life. I don’t know what day it is.

And I won’t eat anything again.

And you like, seriously, thank you for giving me that emotional labor.

Oh yeah.

So anyway, I loved that. I loved people texting me to just be like, I love you. Period.

Don’t respond to me. I just loved the people who just showed up. You know what I mean?

Not showed up to make me hang out with them, because I did not want to talk to anybody, but showed up and delivered groceries or picked my kids up. I only had one at that point. Picked my kid up and took her to the park.

Or that kind of stuff just goes a long way. Today, I don’t think there’s anything… I think this is the other thing to know.

There’s nothing anyone can ever say that’s going to make you feel better. So don’t strive to do that. It’s not…

You shouldn’t even try. Don’t even try to find the right words, because you can’t actually. You can just be a supportive presence.

And you know, if you love someone… And now I know, when someone’s in grief… Like, I am delivering them, you know, six cartons of ice cream, you know, in the mail, and like a big thing of soup.

And I’m just like sending them, you know, and I’m telling them, like, don’t respond to me. Don’t… You know what I mean?

Just like… That is helpful.

Don’t thank me. Don’t even acknowledge it. Okay, if it gets there, gets there, and if it didn’t, I don’t know.

Okay, I don’t want to give you another to do. Yes. And when somebody who is, like, in the throes of it sends me a thank you card, I’m like, how dare you?

How dare you?

That is…

You did not have to do this. Put your politeness aside. It’s okay.

You do not need to thank me.

Truly less than. I’m like, wow, I definitely did not thank a goddamn person when I was in the throes of grief.

What was the most helpful thing you did for yourself?

Oh, wow. I let myself be unbelievably sad. I didn’t force myself to feel anything but acute sorrow.

I laid in my bed. I did have to go to work. I remember I was a teacher at the time.

My principal let me not come to work for one month. Isn’t that nice? Is that so nice?

I know. He was like, don’t come to work. I was like, great.

Once I then had to start going to work, because somebody had to be paying them bills, I then would expel all my energy at work and then would have none after.

And so again, like the people who lived in my house, not having to speak to them, they were also very nice to not demand that of me. One of them was a child, a small, one of them was one. So she didn’t know what the hell was going on.

But the grown man who lived in my house didn’t demand really anything of me. And that was really helpful. And I just I wrote a lot during that time.

Like I ended up publishing this book, you know, because I was just writing a lot. I just was processing a lot of my feelings through writing. And when I say writing, I mean, I was doing a notes app.

I was I was doing a note that went on and on and on and on and on for like days because I didn’t want to be on social and like see people being happy. So I didn’t get on the internet. That also helped.

I stayed off social. I stayed off anything that would trigger me to feel even worse than I did. And then I just would write a lot.

And that was helpful.

Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Also, it’s always good to have a man demand nothing of you.

Okay, so we got we got a lot of we got a lot of notes from the community advice from the community, the the Dead Sibling Society is weighed in. We read this first email.

It’s from Emma.

Yeah.

Okay. I lost my one and only sibling, my little brother, Brian, Bry in July 2020 at 30 years old. That’s how old Harris was.

It’s so young.

30 is so young.

So young. Just 16 months after our amazing dad passed. It was just Bry and I at the receiving line at our dad’s services because our stepmom died two years before.

Oh my God.

I became the last surviving person in my entire paternal line at 37 years old.

At the end of this year, I’ll turn 40 and it feels impossible to be 10 years older than Bry when I’m only four years older.

At the last wedding we went to together before Bry passed, we were watching the mother son dance and he put his arm around me and said, that’ll be us one day, probably when I’m like 40 or maybe older.

Writing all of this isn’t fitting for who my brother is, the brightest, most shiny, hilarious light of a person. So I’ll try to stay on track. Nora asked for advice and healing words.

Here’s the best I can come up with at 10 30 PM, Post Melatonin Gummy.

Oops, I love it.

Oh God, I love this. I love this woman. This fucking sucks.

It’s so hard. Feel all the things you need to feel for however long you need to. I feel utterly shipwrecked, ended up nearly hospitalized and left the career I spent 10 years in.

What were we saying?

I mean, that’s it.

It’s like we are, we are but unique and not unique at all. We are all the same. Spravado, esketamine, oh, ketamine treatments.

Oh, okay.

Therapy, medication and exercise.

Ugh, seriously, saved my life. I hate that one. So, so annoying.

Oh, it’ll help.

I’ll see, I’ll see about that. Oh, it helped. Still want to do it.

Fine.

Do whatever you need to do to get through the day for as long as you need to. And eventually each day do one small thing you don’t want to do.

It doesn’t matter what you’re building, your I can do this muscle, which may be atrophied to dust like mine was. Emma, you’re so smart. Your feedback and advice is better than the ones I’ve been giving on this podcast.

That’s so good.

We got to start over. We have to actually, we have to just plagiarize this. This is now for us, not Emma.

Do you want me to get off and have her be your guest?

Would you mind?

Honestly, kick me out of here.

She’s so good. Okay. Stay in touch with at least one of your brother’s closest friends.

Yes. This is so smart. I love this advice.

Text them all the things you think of when you think of your brother. Text them on your brother’s birthday and the day he passed. Text them to tell them about weird inside jokes about childhood.

Text them embarrassing pictures from your childhood. This is such, such good advice. And I have done this.

My brother’s best friend, like, just texted me, Harris just had his death anniversary and he texted me a picture of him at Harris’s grave, smoking a cigarette, like hanging out with Harris and my dad at the, at the cemetery.

And like you, you, it is so wonderful to have him in, in my life. That is such, such profoundly good advice. Okay, here’s the next piece.

My brother’s best friend eats my brother’s favorite foods to honor my brother on his birthday and on the day he passed. So maybe do something like that. Yes.

I’m on year five. We always go to Chili’s in my house. I’m on year five and I’m still at the cry all day and night on those days phase.

Sometimes the crying lasts a week. It makes sense. That’s another weird thing I want to point out to Nora.

And I’m curious. This is for you too, but I thought I would be crying forever all day long, all night long on these anniversaries always. And I don’t anymore, actually.

I don’t cry all day, all night, all week. So that does pass eventually, actually.

Yeah, I remember the first one. I was like, oh, I have to make it perfect. And I have to have a thing that I do.

And it has to be so perfect and spiritual. And just, I don’t know. For me, a death anniversary, I still physically feel it.

So maybe I need ketamine. Maybe I need something else. Because it’s like, I feel it approaching.

The day it happened, I’m OK-ish. I tried to see Erin’s mom and sister on that day, or spend it fully alone, or spend it with Ralph. But it’s the lead up to it, where I’m like, just not well.

Yes, the anxiety.

That’s right. Totally. Totally.

It’s the anticipation of it that’s worse than the actual thing, which is just true of everything, honestly. Okay. On that note, please validate yourself and remind yourself that your pain makes sense.

The people who tell me they relate to my grief story are twice my age, and it is very annoying. With sibling loss, you might find yourself in a similar situation, so it’s good to have one person validate you in a non-annoying way. Yourself.

Ugh. Again. Ugh.

I love Emma. She’s so funny.

I love Emma.

Emma, you’re so great.

I’m emailing Emma. We’re getting Emma on the pod.

I know. Come on. Okay, here’s another one.

Honor your brother in ways that are true to him. My brother’s sense of humor and huge personality lit up a room, so I channel that force when I’m with my nieces. So I channel that force when I’m with my niece and nephews.

He never got to meet them, and he would have loved them, so it feels like passing down a piece of him to them. Also, my brother was a musician, so I have a playlist of songs. Sometimes I add to that honor him.

Sometimes I channel my inner Brian by dancing in a really ridiculous way alone in the bathroom or talking to myself in a funny voice while trying to motivate myself to make a phone call. The worst. Am I Emma?

Do we? Are we? Is this me?

Did I write this?

I don’t know. I was like, are Brian and Harris and Erin the same person? Are Emma, Steph and Nora the same person?

This is, I don’t know.

Is this the multiverse?

Emma?

Yeah, exactly.

Emma.

Emma. Exactly. I don’t take anything too seriously anymore.

Highly recommend.

Yeah.

Yes.

I just checked the time and it’s 11, 11. Well, obviously. Let’s make a wish.

So that’s my cue to wrap this up for now. Please reach out if you want to talk more. I love talking about my brother and bringing him to life as much as I can.

Thanks for reading, Emma and the ghost of her brother, Brian. This is how I sign cards I send to Brian’s best friend. Oh my God.

What a, what a, that was incredible.

That was great advice. That was great advice. Emma, we love you.

I made a huge mistake booking Steph Wittels Wachs.

Huge.

I would like to, I’d like to issue an apology to everyone. Should have been Emma. No offense.

This honestly, we need to tear in the multiverse and she needs to be, I need to slip out and she needs to slip in.

We got to get her in here.

We got to get her in here. Also, just a small aside, I had to just make the text on my version of this document 150%. I don’t know if these glasses work.

Also, I have not been wearing glasses that long. How do people do it? They’re dirty all the time.

I feel like they’re constantly greasy.

Yes.

And it’s like, I don’t even, I don’t feel like I’m touching them a lot. Am I touching them a lot? There’s gross.

I know glasses are disgusting.

Honestly, we should do a whole other episode on how filthy, nasty, dirty glasses are. I just have these, I have these everywhere. You have to have these everywhere.

I have to have those.

I’ve got like two. I don’t know where they are.

No, they’re in every room.

Yeah. I’m not putting a contact on my eyeball. I’m sorry.

I’m not doing that. I can’t, I’m not touching my eyeball.

No, that’s not a choice.

Okay, back to the Dead Sibling Society. This one is, well, it’s from Sherrilyn, okay. Long time listener, first time caller, LOL, it’s an email.

Everybody’s so funny.

Everybody’s the best.

I love everybody.

Everybody is the best. I mean, most of the time I hate everybody, but today I love everybody. I love everybody in the Dead Sibling Society.

You guys got to get, we got to get a meetup going.

For sure. We got to get a meetup going. And I’m not in it yet, but I’d like to just, I’ll be like a doorman.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Which is something, when I was blackout drunk in college, I used to love standing by the door of a bar and taking IDs.

Yeah, and giving people vodka. No, that’s your role here.

And looking at an ID and going, no, and just turning people away from a bar that did not have a doorman. I was the doorman. So, real fun stuff.

People love that kind of stuff. Quirky girls. Okay.

Back to Sherilyn. Longtime listener first. Okay.

I lost my youngest sister of an overdose. It will be 10 years in February. I’m not sure I have any great advice for your friend who’s joining one of the worst clubs ever.

It’s a society. It’s elevating. I guess I would say that for me, the grief has been very uneven.

I did not have the best relationship with my sister, so it’s probably different than what your friend is experiencing. But I would say I feel the loss more profoundly now than I did when it first happened. I feel more lonely for that relationship.

When she first died, I really struggled with this new identity as someone whose sister had died. I was a person with two sisters and now I’m a person with one.

As time has gone on, I feel that less and just feel sad that I missed out on that close relationship I see others have.

When I see parents with three girls out in public, I always feel this speck of sadness along with the joy I feel in remembering the good times my sister and I had together. I try to just lean into those feelings.

I’m so sorry your friend is experiencing this loss.

Yeah, I know. I feel all that. There is a lot.

I feel that when I see, there’s only one of us now, so my children will never have nieces and cousins who are from my side of the fence. That always makes me, I have a tinge of like, it’s not a good feeling.

It’s like envy, resentment, those ugly feelings. Yeah. That’s such a color that I feel like we don’t talk about a lot, but it’s true.

It’s like, I don’t get that. My kids don’t get that. That sucks.

Just sucks.

Yeah.

I think those are the colors we don’t want to use in the box of crayons. And there are more people than you think who have lost somebody that they didn’t have a perfect relationship with.

And I do think that’s kind of like a double grief of what you had, what you didn’t have, what you might have had, and what you will never have. So it’s a lot. And I really love that perspective too.

So thank you, Sherilyn. You’re on Allison now.

Allison.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you all the long ones.

No.

I hope you love reading.

I know how to read and I can do it. Okay.

Can you?

I can. I can do it. Okay.

This is from Allison. All right. Hi, Nora and team.

I saw, oh no, where do I start?

Oh, I just cut those parts out so we can just…

Okay. So I say tomorrow. I got you.

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Tomorrow, January 11th, marks 22 years since I lost my older brother in a skiing accident. I was 21 at the time and he was 24.

So I’m officially at that point now that I will have lived longer without him than with him, which is in many ways unfathomable.

In the years since I’ve also lost both of my parents and each of their deaths felt that much more multiplied by not having my brother there to share in that experience. I feel that. I just went through that.

That sucked. In those early days, I think what helped get me through was just trying to let myself feel the feelings and acknowledge that it really was as bad and as horrible and as unfair as it felt.

That it was chaos and not a sign of some moral failing of my family.

I tried to give myself grace to be sad, but also on days when I could, I would try to say yes to people and activities that could provide a distraction or at least a social interaction.

It’s easy to want to just hibernate and hide in bed, but it also can sometimes feel better when you do get out and remember what it feels like to live.

As the years have gone by, it became even more important to me that I keep in touch with my brother’s friends and our family members who also love and miss him. It means so much just to talk to other people about him and say his name.

Losing your sibling feels like losing your own history and part of your childhood. So having anyone else who was also a witness to that history can make you feel less alone.

Also, finding authors and creators who have experienced loss and grief is huge. Along with listening to TTFA and reading your books, I think she’s talking about you, Nora.

I have also found great comfort in the works of Kate Bowler, Stephanie Wittels Wachs, me, and also Anderson Cooper’s podcast, An Interview with Stephen Colbert.

It’s easy to feel like everyone else still has an intact family, but when you scratch just below the surface, you realize that so many others, including celebrities, have dealt with grief and sibling loss specifically.

Listening to a podcast and crying in the car can be a good stand-in for therapy sometimes.

I wish there was some other comfort I could provide, but I guess all I can say is that it is truly, truly awful and I’m sorry that your friend is now experiencing it.

Like all grief, you have no choice but to carry it with you for the rest of your life. With love, Alice and Katie. That one made me feel really emotional.

I know.

It was really beautiful.

It really hurt. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And to be so young and then when you cross that threshold of being without someone longer than you were with them, really weird, really weird.

And also, I think I’ve also learned that it’s not the end of a relationship, it’s the continuation of a relationship. And also the math that she said is real too, right?

It’s like, yeah, he has not been physically here with you for longer than he was physically here with you. And before my dad died, he said, we never really leave one another. And there are times where I feel that presence.

And I think, yeah, Steve, you were right. And then there are times where I’m like, yeah, it’s not as good though.

It’s not. It’s not as good. It’s not as good.

Yes, Steve.

If it was as good, we’d be like, oh, he died? No big deal.

Totally. I mean, and also-

He’s still here.

God, I know. And it is really shitty to not have your sibling with you when your parents die. It is really, it really sucks.

That part, do not recommend. Yeah. Zero, zero stars.

Yeah. No fun.

No fun. No fun. I mean, other, and you know what?

My dad’s funeral was actually really fun because all my siblings were there.

That’s what I was going to say.

I’m not even joking. Okay?

I’m sure when your dad died, you had a great time because you had siblings.

But I actually did stuff. That’s what I mean. I mean, it really did rule.

We were all at the funeral home trying to pick out a casket. My little brother kept going, he wanted a Dracula box. The poor lady’s like, coffin.

We call that a coffin. He’s like, yeah, but you have to make sure it’s like a Dracula box. She’s like, that’s a coffin.

So patient. It’s a coffin. You mean coffin.

He wanted a coffin. We had to go to Nordstrom Rack because neither of my brothers owned a belt. I truly felt like a kid again.

I was like, well, if you’re buying him a belt, I want a belt. I don’t need one.

But yeah.

Oh my God. I’m so jealous of your dad dying.

I know. We all got in the car together and I thought, oh, maybe we’ll all die in a car accident together today. Then I won’t have to ever miss any of you ever again.

I’ll never have to miss another person because we’ll all go together in a Honda CR-V on the freeway to the Mall of America.

Oh my God. What a nightmare and a gift.

And a gift and a gift. So yeah, okay. All right, this one is from Jenna.

I lost my younger sister about five years ago when she was 29 years old under rather traumatic circumstances.

Well, sipping loss has shown itself to me to be a less thought of scenario for a lot of people with so much of the focus going to our parents and her husband and daughter, not undeservedly, but lonely for me at times.

I will say that those closest to me, especially friends that also knew my sister, were the biggest comfort. Having people around me that also had memories of her and were willing and able to talk about her was so meaningful.

Once I was through the initial and strongest grief and had more energy again, I took up hobbies that were interests of hers and I started volunteering in her honor even if I’m the only one that knows that’s part of why I’m doing it at times.

It helps me continue to feel close to her as the years go by. My deepest condolences to listeners who find themselves in part of this club. Again, guys, we’re calling it a society.

No one knew that when they wrote in.

I mean, everyone get with the program. We’ve branded it and it’s important to stick to the brand guidelines.

It’s important. It’s important. And so that’s from Jenna.

And I love that she pointed that out because like studies have shown that sibling grief is a sort of a forgotten grief, a disenfranchised grief. And I think part of it is because we don’t have like, we have Mother’s Day, we have Father’s Day.

Yeah.

We have weddings, we have ways that we celebrate all these other relationships, but not siblings, even though like you were saying they hold so much of your history, your shared history, right?

These shared experiences that are just stored between the two of you and or the three of you or the four of you. And you know, you can’t have more than three siblings, maximum four.

Yeah. There’s honestly, when they outnumber a car, you guys need to-

If you can’t all fit in a Honda CRV-

We’re not doing it.

It’s too many. It’s too many. But that’s really common is that people feel like they lose a sibling and they’re kind of lost in the shuffle.

And again, it’s not to say like other people don’t deserve the sympathy or don’t deserve that acknowledgement, but like that’s very normal apparently is for sibling losers to feel like, is anyone seeing me? Does anyone know what I’ve lost?

Yeah. I also, I had this aha when I deleted three years of videos from my phone.

I don’t want to talk about it, but basically I realized when I was like so tortured that I lost these videos of my kids, but I was like, wait a minute, I have like four videos of myself as a child and in total.

The record keeper of your childhood, especially for us olds was your sibling. Yeah. Harris was there too.

My mom’s lost her mind. She doesn’t know what happened. I’m not going to ask her.

She’s like, no, you didn’t, you never, this is my mom.

No, I don’t think so.

Right. And I’m like, you don’t know what, you tried to send me a link to your shopping cart on Wayfair yesterday and then got mad at me that I couldn’t see all the beds that you had put in there. Like I, obviously I can’t look at your shopping cart.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, I just, send me the link to the product page. Mom, mom, send me the link to the product page.

I can’t, anyway.

I put them in the cart.

Point is, you do lose your record keeper. And that is a bummer. It is, like the keeper of your childhood.

It’s so sad. Yeah, it is.

Okay, you’re gonna read Karen. You’re gonna read Karen.

Okay, okay.

This is a good one too. I keep giving you the long ones. I’m so sorry.

No, I’m happy to do this.

You’re a good reader. Thank you. I know how you read.

Let me find where Karen is.

Yeah, okay, sorry. I skipped, you read Liz, and then I’ll read Karen, because I think we skipped Liz.

Okay. This is from Liz. Having lost my brother when he was 46 and I was 42, I want to first and foremost say that I truly am sorry you’re experiencing this loss right now.

It was absolutely devastating and changed my life in profound ways. Because it is not talked about as often as other types of loss, I can assure you that whatever you’re feeling is completely valid.

Sibling loss brings with it some issues that are unique to that experience that don’t get resolved easily. Depending on your relationship with them, it can feel just as or more awful as slash than any other type of loss.

I have found comfort in hearing from those who have also lost siblings. Mainstream media people for this are Anderson Cooper. The podcast on grief is excellent.

Stephen Colbert and Joseph Gordon Levitt come to mind. Books that were helpful are Megan Divine and Annie S-Claver Ornstein as well as Nora’s. There are support groups specific to sibling loss.

The dinner party was one I found in my searches. And finally, good old fashioned talk therapy has helped me so much in terms of talking about what I’ve experienced with a trained therapist.

So many things will impact your journey, but a few themes I’ve noticed in my own and others experiences are how to handle your own grief vs. that of your parents losing a child.

And how to respond to others less than helpful statements regarding your loss and how you should be feeling slash responding.

Survivors guilt and losing someone who was a co-witness to your childhood and missing a sibling who was also a best friend are all there too. What ifs and why them and why me and hindsight and disbelief show up too.

All of this is to say that over time, he died 11 years ago.

I have discovered that while the grief is still with me every day, it has morphed over time and given me perspective on what deep loss can bring beyond the initial paralyzing raw and unrelenting sadness.

We’ll send so much love and warmth your way, Liz.

Oh, that one. There’s a lot of resources, which I really appreciate.

I love a resource.

I love a resource.

Give me a recommendation that I can tangibly hold in my hands.

The perspective on what deep loss can bring beyond the initial paralyzing raw and unrelenting sadness.

I mean, the Hello Poet didn’t know it.

I love it. I love it. Okay.

This one is from Karen. Again, we have so many e-mails and messages. We are going to have to do Dead Sibling Society part two.

Yes. That’ll be with Emma. So don’t get your hopes up, Steph.

I’m not booked for that.

Yeah. Emma, you’re hired. Steph, you’re fired.

You’re out.

You’re out. You’re out of here. You’re out.

Okay. I’m so sorry to hear about your friend who lost their sibling. It’s crushing.

A sibling knows you in a way nobody else does. There’s a shorthand. They know your childhood.

They’ve seen you at your worst, dorkiest, nerdiest, and love you anyway. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to unconditional love from a human. I know not everyone has that kind of relationship with their siblings.

I thought I would share a bit about my experience with my brother’s death in hopes of helping. Although as you know, it’s going to keep sucking no matter what. I lost my brother slash best friend in April 2013.

I can still stop at the drop of a hat, so there’s that. Just for context, he was diagnosed in August and died the following April, so there was time to process and say things and have experiences.

Not sure if your friend had that, and I do think it makes a difference. Also, I was with him when he died. That also makes a difference.

Here’s what helped me, and I love help in quotation marks. I really do. I love this.

Okay.

I talk about him all the time, even to this day.

I talk about him mostly in present tense, although that has changed in recent years. Two, I tell coworkers and newer friends who didn’t know him, you would love Tom. Everyone did.

Or you and Tom would get along. You both fill in the blank. Three, I’ve adopted some of his phrases.

For example, I once was commenting about the weather forecaster in my town, complaining about the way she dresses. Weather forecasters get so much crap for the way they dress.

I mean, poor things. Bless their hearts. Leave them alone.

Complaining about the way she dresses and how she phrases things, and he said, yeah, she’s a filthy whore.

It was hilarious. He said shocking things just to make you laugh. That’s very Erin.

I shared that phrase with close friends, but you got to be careful. And now they use it. He lives on in inappropriate retorts.

I love it. He would love it. Do you have things that you say that everybody does?

Now I say, yeah, she’s a filthy whore.

That is what I now say.

That’s what I say for Tom.

We say constantly, future tripping is a big thing in our house. Harris used to talk about it, quit future tripping. We say that all the time.

That’s a huge one. And then Harris’ best thing that he ever said was, let’s stop finding a new witch of the week and burning them at the stake. We’re all horrible and wonderful and figuring it out.

And we say that to each other constantly as well. Yeah.

Also, it’s kind of wild because your brother coined a phrase that everybody uses and they don’t know the origin story. And I tell people, okay, when I hear them, I’m like, do you know who coined that phrase?

That’s right. Okay.

You coined humble brag.

That’s right.

Do you know?

Do you know? He created a Twitter account and he would drag people who were offenders. No, I mean, actually, to this point, like somebody just emailed me, who was it?

Oh, Elizabeth Lame, Elizabeth Lame. I was just emailing with her and she was like, I told my kids about your brother last night because they used the word humble brag. Then I got to tell them about my friend Harris, who came up with it.

When you get to hear new stories about people, whenever anybody tells me a new story about my brother, it is like a treasure trove. It’s like the best gift.

Yeah.

So much fun. Love that.

Love a lot. I love it. I love it.

I love it. Four, I wrote my feelings. I started a blog that nobody read or knew about, but in my head, I was telling the world how I felt about this amazing human who was my human.

Same thing. I love that. Five, I have a few things he loved in my apartment.

A painting he bought when we went to an art festival together, a piece of pottery he bought in Santa Fe when we drove across the country in 2005.

Six, I periodically reread his obituary, what I wrote for a celebration of life, photos of sprinkling his ashes, my blog post, and I let myself cry. I recently lost my mom and the grief is different but also the same, you know?

And it’s dredged up my grief for my brother. And there are some unspoken circumstances around my brother’s death that still bother me. Ultimately, my pain, all the tears.

How lucky am I to have had people in my life I loved so much. I hope your friend receives even a little comfort from all your listeners submitting their experiences with love, Karen. I love you, Karen.

I know.

I love you, Karen.

I feel like I say that all the time.

I got to have my brother and my dad in my life. Both of those guys I got.

Yeah.

How did I? Those guys were the best.

Yeah. What are the chances?

What are the chances?

I know. I feel the same way too. I’m like, oh my, you would love it.

Whenever somebody likes me, I’m like, I’m second best.

Yeah.

Really.

Like genuinely. Yes.

Let me tell you who was actually cool.

Yeah.

Okay. Who I stole a lot of jokes from.

Yeah.

Okay.

A lot of jokes.

100%.

Yes.

Okay.

We have a couple of voicemails I’m going to play.

This is the first one.

Hi, Nora.

I’m calling to give some feedback on sibling loss. My younger brother died in 2010 when he was 21 and I was 23. I had a young kiddo at the time and just probably echoing what a lot of people have already shared, it is very much the forgotten loss.

I think one of the things that was so profound to me was that it was very isolating. He was my only sibling and so I felt that I was in a unique grieving position. I didn’t have anyone else to relate to.

In most scenarios, a mom has the dad or there are parents that are grieving a loss, and even aunts and uncles or friends, there’s always a counterpart to the griever. I didn’t feel like I had that.

In addition to also feeling responsible for not only tending to my parents’ grief in the moment, and in the several years after, but also the added weight of carrying the story of our family on my own.

I think that’s a unique dynamic between siblings, is that even if your childhood environment seemingly looks much different than your sibling or your siblings, like you share that bond of we had this experience together.

I think there’s just a lot of nuance to it. I think it’s not talked about a lot or honored in the way that it should be. I appreciate you being curious and asking these questions.

I think community and finding other people who have experienced a similar loss is probably the most helpful thing. Owning that, it’s different and unique.

I hope that’s helpful. Thanks.

Okay.

Did you feel, because your situations are similar, like losing your only sibling, like your parents had each other. Did you feel like the odd one out at all, or did you feel forgotten or lost at all?

I mean, my parents didn’t really have each other is the thing.

I think all of us, it’s so interesting because our family was so, we so glued together close and when this happened, like everyone really was sort of like on their own island, grieving, I feel like, you know? Yeah.

But I was like the executor of Harris’ estate. Like I had a job to do and I think, listen, if you give me a job.

I love a job.

I love a job and I will do it well.

I’ll do that job.

I will do it really well.

I love a task.

You better give me a job and so I was like so busy doing that job. So I think because I had to do that, I felt like I had a focal point.

I feel like if I didn’t have that job to do, I would have like really felt completely untethered from like the planet completely. But the other thing with my dad was like my dad didn’t want to talk about anything.

He didn’t want to grieve and he didn’t want to go to therapy and he didn’t want to process any of his feelings of sadness and sorrow and my mom and I very much did.

So she and I like did a lot of that together in a way where like I feel like my poor dad like just never was able to get through, you know what I mean? So we sort of like toggled back and forth, I think as a family in a way.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, it sucks.

Yeah, it just sucks. It just sucks guys.

Sucks. Anyway, the end.

Yeah, anyways, here’s another voicemail.

Hi, I just saw your post of someone that lost their sibling that they were close to. And I wanted to just say you are alone. You’re not alone.

We stand with you. And your sibling is watching over you. The grief doesn’t go away.

But as time goes on, your life will grow around the grief. And you’re going to pass so many moments, big moments, small moments that you wish your sibling was there. And just know that you’re not that alone and it hurts.

But you’re going to be okay. Sending you all the love.

Oh, that was so sweet and so generous.

Oh my God. That was so sweet and generous.

It really was. I just think for somebody to do that in that moment and have that kind of emotional reaction to somebody else really does make me feel like less alone.

You have to remember, this is a note to myself, the next time you feel like it is just you out in the world, that if somebody else throws up the bat signal, a complete stranger will call into a podcast and choke back her own tears to make you feel

I know.

That was, guys, we’re going to make it.

We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it. That was really beautiful.

I have to text that woman and say that was so beautiful. Oh my God. Okay.

This is our last voicemail, so buckle up.

Okay. I’m buckling.

Hi, Nora. I saw your posts on Instagram about advice for sibling loss for your friend. I lost my sister in February.

It will be eight years unexpectedly, and the one advice I would give is just feel your grief wherever you are. I remember when my sister passed away and every little thing we did together, like I couldn’t even do.

I remember the first time my partner at the time took me to my family’s favorite sushi place and when my sister was still here, we went about probably once every two weeks and we got seated at the same booth that I last sat with my sister and when

our food came out, I just started bawling and I remember the waitress asked if anything was okay and I just let her know and then she took the bell was just really nice of her and even to this day, I think about all the things that she missed, like

all her favorite shows, used to love watching together. When they ended, I cried because I felt like I lost a piece of her or just watching we loved Real Housewives, thinking about how she would feel and yeah, just feel it because I feel the thing

that doesn’t get talked enough is your siblings are your soulmate. They know you from the moment you’re born and the life experiences you have together, no one will ever understand other than your siblings. So yeah, that’s my advice.

Feel it wherever your grief, wherever you are. Don’t be embarrassed of it even if it’s in a middle of the aisle looking at candy that you would go get after work together. So that’s my advice.

Thank you.

I love everyone.

I think we fixed the world today.

I love everyone. I can’t say it enough. I don’t know if I’ve, I was always so partial to widows.

Yeah.

I have a new favorite demographic.

You need to change teams because this is where it is.

This is where it’s at.

These are the good people.

These are the people.

Well, I don’t think I’m ever going to get over this. This is such a generous, just such a generous act of everybody, truly.

I know.

Thank you so much. But it did lead me to one more question for you, Steph, because this caller brought up TV shows, brought up, Oh. And if, oh, what show do you think Harris would really, really like, LOL at?

Oh my God.

I mean, Righteous Gemstones, like, would have taken his ass out. Like, the fact that he was not able to see that show is criminal.

In fact, he couldn’t write on it. Seems illegal.

Cause he did write on Eastbound and Down. So he actually maybe would have written on the show. But that one is the first one that came to mind because that is just, you know, just the weirdest wildest journey ever.

I think he would like be dying over this show Neighbors. Are you watching this new show Neighbors on HBO? It is insane.

It’s so good. It’s a documentary. A24 produces it.

And it’s Neighbors. Each episode is a different pair of Neighbors who are engaged in war.

Okay. No, that’s up my alley. That is up my alley.

You would love it.

Yeah.

And then, you know, obviously, like the fact that he missed out on Love Is Blind, like he loved The Bachelor.

Like this boy loved some like reality TV based around Falling In Love. Like he, the fact that I can’t text him about Love Is Blind does really, really, really blow constantly.

Yeah.

Those are just a few that come to mind.

Yeah. I remember Aaron being like, I can’t die before Game of Thrones ends. And then I like, I remember watching the end and being like, I’m so glad you died before you saw this show.

I know.

I’m so glad you didn’t have to see this.

Oh, it’s all, sorry, spoilers for a show that ended like 10 years ago. It’s Zombies.

Guys. Okay. They, they, they really jumped the shark.

It, it, it didn’t end well. Didn’t end well.

I was like, like, no, you, you, you left, you left it at its peak. That was right.

That was good.

Okay. Steph, thank you so much. You’re truly an angel.

You’re an angel and I love you very much.

And you’re so beautiful. You’re so beautiful.

So beautiful.

I just adore you.

Like, I just love you very much. I know.

I know.

And this is another thing too. Never would have met you.

Never.

In a million years.

So very, never.

I’ve never even been to Houston. It would.

I know. I know. What would have happened?

The lives we’re living are insane. I don’t understand how anything is real. My son always, Harry, my son, my brother’s son, he says to me all the time, like, everything is real.

You know, like the multiverse, like we talk about it a lot in our household, a lot. He’s like, it’s real. Constant, constant references to the multiverse.

Anyway, I’m glad that this multiverse includes you in my life and I love all your listeners. I’m like, this is the best, most supportive community that exists on the planet.

We have better people. You can’t, can’t. They’re all here.

They’re so good.

Anyway, thank you for having me on. And I hope Emma’s good on the second episode.

Emma’s going to be great.

Yeah.

Emma’s going to be great. I’m sorry.

I know.

I had fun with you. We’ve got to get Emma on. 100%.

I’m paling a person.

Yeah.

Okay. That was really so, so, so beautiful. Again, a huge thank you to everybody who called in, wrote in, texted.

If you didn’t hear yourself on this episode, wait for the next one. And if you have something to add to the conversation, call us, 612-568-4441. Email us.

You can also text that number, I should say. Email us, thanks at feelingsand.co. Grief is not the end of a relationship.

Grief is the continuation of a relationship. And like we said, it is not as good. It’s better when your person is alive.

But the themes that I heard today were find someone who gets it. You need a dead sibling society, buddy. Let yourself be sad, be angry or whatever.

Feel your feelings. Stay close to the people who are close to the person you love. Know that your feelings will change.

It will not always feel like this. And above all, you are not alone even when you feel like you are. I’m Nora McInerny.

This is Thanks For Asking. Thank you so much for being here. We are an independent podcast, so every every listen counts, every share counts, every rating and review counts.

Everything that you do helps the show. We’re independent and that’s on purpose. We want to be this way and we appreciate all of you sticking with us.

We have a YouTube channel also. I mean, I think I think we had 12,000 people following us on YouTube. And that makes me very proud.

Some full episodes are up there, clips, other sort of videos adjacent to the themes that we explore on this show. That’s linked in the show description and so is our Substack.

I send out essays, I do monthly reading roundups, you have ad free episodes, you have the entire back catalog. You can join monthly, annually or as a supporting producer and supporting producers, you know what benefit they get?

They get their name in the credits, baby. But speaking of credits, this episode was produced by Marcel Malekebu, our opening theme music is by Geoffrey Lamar Wilson, and our closing theme music is by my youngest son, Q.

And like I said, we have to thank our supporting producers, including Augie Book, Joy Heising, No Name, Nancy Duff, Jenny Medein, Kathleen Langerman, Jordan Jones, Ben, Jess, Beth Derry, Sarah Garifo, Jennifer McDaigle in all caps, Kathy Sigman,

Sarah David, Mary Beth Berry, my high school gym teacher, Sheila, Crystal, Kaylee Sakai, Virginia Labassi, Lizzie DeVries, Rachel Walton, David Binkley, Lisa Piven, Michelle Toms, Nicole Petey, Renee Kepke, Melody Swinford, Stacey Wilson, Car Pan,

Caroline Moss, my best friend, Michelle Oh, Ann Dabrzinski, Amanda, Stacey Demouro, Jess Blackwell, Abia Rose, Crystal Mann, Bonnie Robinson, Lauren Hanna, Jacqueline Ryder, Patrick Irvine, Shannon Dominguez-Stevens, Kathy Hamm, Erin John, Penny

Pesta, Madd, Christina, Emily Ferriso, Elizabeth Berkley, Kiara, Monica, Alyssa Robison, Faye Barons, Kaylee, Kate Byerjohn, Jessica Reed, Courtney McCown, Jeremy Essen, Jen, Lindsay Lund, Jessica Letexier, Stephanie Johnson, Alexis Lane, Robin

Roulard, Jill MacDonald, Dave Gilmore, Ilya Filiz-Milan, LGS, all caps, Chelsea Cernik, Kelly Conrad, Jen Grimlin and Micah. Thank you guys so much and we’ll see you here again next week.