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193. Sibling Grief Unveiled: Stories, Struggles, and Strength with Annie Sklaver Orenstein
47 Plays12 days ago
ANNIE SKLAVER ORENSTEIN is a qualitative researcher, oral historian, and storyteller who has spent over a decade collecting stories from people around the world. Her work has been featured on NBC Nightly News, Comedy Central, Huffington Post, Politico, TIME, and Mother.ly. In 2020, driven by a desire to share these stories beyond the walls of corporate America, Annie founded Dispatch from Daybreak, a collection of letters written by womxn to their earlier selves. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, children, dog, and chickens.
After her brother was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan, Annie Sklaver Orenstein was heartbroken and unmoored. Standing in the grief section of her local bookstore, she searched for guides on how to work through her grief as a mourning sibling—and found nothing.
More than 4 million American adults each year will lose a sibling, yet there isn't a modern resource guide available that speaks directly to this type of grief that at times can be overshadowed by grieving parents and spouses and made even more difficult by the complexities of sibling dynamics.
In ALWAYS A SIBLING: The Forgotten Mourner's Guide to Grief (Hachette Go, 9780306831492, 5/28/24, 272 pp, HC, $30), Annie uses her own story and those of others to create the empathic, thoughtful, practical resource that she sought. Divided into three sections: With, Without, and Within, it creates a framework that enables the reader to ground themselves in order to process and validate this often overlooked grief. Annie guides readers to capture the memories and emotions of life with their now-deceased sibling, then moves to addressing the grieving process in detail as they navigate life without them. Ultimately, readers will find ways to experience their sibling's presence within themselves and acknowledge their legacy.
With practical strategies rooted in proven grief processing techniques, trauma recovery, and psychoanalysis, ALWAYS A SIBLING supports mourners through the unique experience of sibling loss.
Key Subjects Covered:
- The historical significance of mourning rituals and how they validated grief in public spaces.
- The "dual loss" of sibling grief, where family dynamics and parental relationships inevitably shift.
- Annie's reflections on the societal minimization of grief and the pressure to move on quickly.
- The psychological weight of generational trauma and anticipatory grief in parenting.
- How Annie’s research and interviews with over 350 individuals informed the creation of her book.
- The Mourners User Manual (M.U.M.) as a tool for navigating grief thoughtfully.
https://www.annieorenstein.com/
Contact Kendra Rinaldi https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
So sibling loss is actually known kind of in the academic literature, grief literature, as a dual loss. Because when you experience the loss of a sibling, you also in many ways experience the loss of parent.
00:00:19
Speaker
Your parents are never the same because how could they be, right? like I'm not saying it as a judgment. It's a fact. How could you lose a child and be and go back to being exactly the same as you were before? It's impossible.
Exploring Grief Through Life Changes
00:00:48
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and
00:01:04
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys.
00:01:15
Speaker
I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right into today's episode.
Annie's Personal Journey and Book on Sibling Grief
00:01:25
Speaker
I am chatting with Annie Sklaver-Orenstein. She is a qualitative researcher, an oral historian, and the author of a book, her own book now, Always a Sibling, The Forgotten Mourner's Guide to Grief. And we will be chatting about her own grief journey, as well as all the research she did for the book, interviewing a lot of people that have had experienced sibling loss.
00:01:51
Speaker
So welcome to the podcast, Annie. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat today. I am ah grateful you're here. Of course, always the circumstances of why it is we're talking who sometimes are not the ones we would wanted to be. And one thing you mentioned very clearly in your talk book is the before before and the after. like There's a clear mark of your life of the before and the after your brother Ben died and and ah how life just completely shifts from that point. And one of those being that in that moment, had you not experienced that you we wouldn't be sitting here right now talking.
00:02:35
Speaker
Neither would I because my... and know I would not be having a podcast on the topic of grief had I not experienced grief myself. So anyway, it is ah it is what it is. And now we're going with life with what we've got and doing the best with what we have.
Annie's Background and Family Move
00:02:53
Speaker
So Annie, you were sharing when we just hopped on that you just moved. So share a little of where you grew up, where you went and where you ended up. And then we'll, I'll kind of guide the conversation from there.
00:03:07
Speaker
Sure. Absolutely. um So I grew up in Connecticut and a town called a town right outside new Haven, Connecticut.
00:03:20
Speaker
Um, and you know, lived there. We never moved, lived there my, my whole, you know, until I went to college. Um, and then I went to college in New York city. And with the exception of about ah three and a half year stint in LA, I was in New York for close to 20 years.
00:03:43
Speaker
Um, and then in 2020, twenty twenty pandemic hit and suddenly ah we had to, you know, work from home and school from home in a one bedroom apartment with two kids, which was getting a little...
00:04:00
Speaker
dicey So we yeah we went to my parents' house. Thankfully, they they had the space for us and the patience for us. So we were we went there and a few months in realized, you know, this suburban life is kind of nice and slow and it's easier to raise kids, not in a one bedroom apartment.
00:04:21
Speaker
so ah So we stayed, we bought a house and stayed in that house for about four years and then moved two weeks ago and and actually just moved up the street.
00:04:36
Speaker
It was ah it a very short distance move and yet somehow it still has the same number of boxes. It was a short drive, but other than that, it it feels pretty massive. You still have to move everything out. Yeah, unless you just like threw everything in your car. Which clothing you can just like leave in the hangers, put them in the backseat, and then just hang them in your closet. That you could do in a short drive. Clothes are easy.
00:05:05
Speaker
Clothes are unpacked. it's But the other things, yes, you still have to put them in the box. they yeah it's ah It is quite quite quit the feat to do, even if it's just two blocks down.
Motivation to Write on Sibling Grief
00:05:16
Speaker
So again, when we're taught this is we're recording in October, and October is the month of your brother's anniversary as we are chatting here today. So let's talk about the reason that you wrote this book and that being your brother, Ben, um and what, yeah, how was that process for you yeah of your grief journey?
00:05:49
Speaker
So my, i have two older brothers, Ben and Sam. um And they, you know, were my, my idols, my everything. um You know, it was like, my parents were fine.
00:06:05
Speaker
My brothers, I was obsessed with. My mom will always joke that she raised two kids and then her two kids raised her third kid. That was, that was the dynamic. Yeah.
00:06:16
Speaker
um And in 2009, on October 2nd of 2009, Ben was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.
00:06:30
Speaker
um I was actually babysitting for Sam's son, for my first nephew, um when started...
00:06:43
Speaker
you know when my parents started kind of got the news and and called Sam and said they were on their way into the city to tell me. And Sam said, you know, she's she's at my house. she's She's at my apartment. She's sitting on my couch. I'll go home and tell her. um And that was really, that was the shift. You know, that was the break in the timeline where suddenly it was Nothing was as it had been. Nothing was as it should be. it it it felt like the whole world was just off kilter.
00:07:21
Speaker
um And in my, you know, grief, those early days are can be somewhat blurry um as it is for a lot of people. But one thing I remember very clearly was going to look for a book or something that might help me as a sibling.
00:07:44
Speaker
and And I went to a big bookstore and I went to the grief section and I checked the table of contents and the indexes and all of these grief books. And there were books for grieving parents and grieving children and and friends and partners and pets, but there was nothing for siblings.
00:08:06
Speaker
And because sibling grief is often diminished, you know, anyway, ah and and that was kind of what I had experienced,
00:08:20
Speaker
i I was 25 at the time and I took the lack of a book or resource as a I took it to mean that I should be fine.
00:08:33
Speaker
You know, I had a very, very like confirming, like confirming that what you were based, not confirming, like dismissing that what you were feeling was actually valid because if there were no books on it, then it meant you shouldn't be feeling anything.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yes. Yes. I had a very like literal business minded. ah Train of thought that was like. Publishing is a, you know, billion dollar, multi-billion dollar industry.
00:09:02
Speaker
There are books for literally everything. If there's no book about sibling grief, it must be because no one needed one, right? That it, that like supply and demand, there was no demand.
00:09:21
Speaker
So there was no supply. yeah, As a sibling griever, your grief is is often kind of pushed to the back.
Societal Oversight of Sibling Grief
00:09:32
Speaker
um People...
00:09:35
Speaker
ask how your parents are doing, but they don't ask how you are doing, right? um There's a lot of messaging like you need to be okay for your parents. ah You need to focus on, you know, if you're yeah if your sibling had a partner, you know, you have to focus on them You have to focus on your grieving parents.
00:09:57
Speaker
There's no real message of you should focus on you. and And so i think that coupled with not even being able to find a book, um it was just like this messaging everywhere that was, I was supposed to be fine.
00:10:18
Speaker
But at the same time, i didn't know how, like, how could I ever possibly we be fine? Because this person was my person and was like one of the most important people in my life. And so and i really struggled to understand what to do with my grief and how to grieve and how to process it.
00:10:40
Speaker
um i I was very stuck for a long time in kind of complicated grief. I felt like... um like the grief was all I had left.
00:10:52
Speaker
And so i didn't want to let it go. i didn't want to move through it or move on from it because then what was I going to have? Um, I didn't really understand.
00:11:04
Speaker
I think that grief, the grief is always there. You don't have to cling, cling to it, but you can kind of like get to know it a little bit and you can live together more harmoniously.
00:11:16
Speaker
um But it was it took, you know, it it was years before I started to think about writing anything. And and ultimately, what I wrote was in many ways, the book that 25 year old Annie needed that day at the bookstore, you know, and um as you mentioned, I did a lot of research and a lot of interviews for the book. And I often would go back to those and think about like, OK, this is how do I write this as the book that you know this person who I interviewed needed when their sibling died? And that was very helpful framing for me and kind of a helpful like touchstone to keep going back to.
00:12:03
Speaker
Annie, you said a lot of things in this intro, so I want to make sure I touch on some of these. The first one, let's go to the one about the interviews themselves.
00:12:16
Speaker
How did you choose or how did you find
Research for a Comprehensive Perspective on Grief
00:12:20
Speaker
who to interview that had experienced sibling loss? how did How did you come across these individuals?
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah, great question. um So I put out a survey. I ran a survey um and, you know, was looking for sibling, surviving siblings.
00:12:43
Speaker
um And I started sharing, you know, with my own network and social channels and asking people to share. um i was very fortunate um because it was then kind of picked up and shared on social media by some folks who have much larger followings than I do, for sure.
00:13:05
Speaker
i don't have a following. So Um, the, I'm following your account. I am one. Thank you. Thank you so much. And you are one of my one too. And I follow you too. Um, so it was shared, um, you know, it was shared on social media, which was great because really the last thing I wanted was to only interview people like in my network.
00:13:29
Speaker
um And so it it was very important to me to have a diverse and representative sample as much as possible. and And to me, what that meant was, you know, my brother was killed in Afghanistan.
00:13:42
Speaker
That's a very unique experience, the way you are treated in that situation is very different than you know the folks I spoke to who lost a sibling to addiction or mental health challenges. They did not get the same outpouring of support that we got.
00:13:59
Speaker
And so I really wanted those all represented. So I did this survey with a lot of open-ended questions. So I got a lot of like really incredible written responses. I mean, people took time to write a lot, which was unreal.
00:14:14
Speaker
um And there were over 350 responses there. That is crazy. And people wrote a lot.
00:14:25
Speaker
I mean, I had a lot to go through, which was awesome. um And from there, i Oh my gosh. Yeah, no, go ahead. Continue. No, I was just going to say the fact that you were giving them also just the space of being able to share. Just the fact that you posted that question out there. Yeah. Just like you said that you didn't feel your grief was valid or validated by society, you also did the same for them by just putting even that question here. Whether you were to choose their answer, you know, them to be on your book or not, you gave them that space and held space for them to share their story.
00:15:04
Speaker
So that is, that is huge, even just for their own grief journey. Yeah. And I'll say, I didn't see it that way at the time. I thought, man, you know, I hope these people do me the favor of filling this out. I did not think I was doing something to help others. I was hoping that the book would help others, but I thought the survey was like me asking people for something.
00:15:30
Speaker
Um, And don't it the responses reflected what you said. You know, it was a lot of people being saying even like, I didn't know that I needed to talk about this until I started writing it. And now I'm crying, writing this survey. And thank you. um and So I took those responses and had kind of a matrix of, okay, I want different you know people of different ethnicities and in genders, but I also wanted people who
00:16:04
Speaker
lost their siblings at different ages. i wanted you know some people who, where the loss was more recent or the loss happened a long time ago. um I had kind of different cat different causes of death that i I knew I needed a few people from each of those.
00:16:22
Speaker
And so on the one hand, the fact that I got such robust survey responses was amazing because I basically had information that filled all of those buckets. um But I then went through and kind of hand selected folks to do follow up interviews with.
00:16:43
Speaker
And those interviews lasted anywhere from one to two and a half hours. um And that was where I really kind of dove deeper into some of these things. And it was, it was where being a kind of career researcher came in very handy because i could,
00:17:05
Speaker
put on my researcher hat and be very kind of analytical about it. and Not that I didn't cry during every single interview, because I think I did. um But it was like, okay, I need to talk to people who experience homicide. I need to talk to people who had experience with, you know, addiction.
00:17:25
Speaker
and so That was really helpful. And I did about close to 40 of those follow-up interviews. um And then so also some some interviews with professionals or experts in the field as well.
00:17:43
Speaker
That is incredible. And the fact that there is the diverse ways, not only of how people died, but also the relationship with the individuals.
00:17:55
Speaker
ah One of the ones that is ah mentioned is that aspect of when someone might have not had a good relationship with the sibling and then the sibling dies and then people are like, well, why are you grieving? You didn't even...
00:18:09
Speaker
talk to your sibling for however many years or, you know, those kinds of things that are very complex in the it the, the complexity of grief. You mentioned quite a bit in the different types of, of grief that are labeled out there, whether we want to go by those labels or not, but that at least it gives some kind of idea of what it
Complex Sibling Relationships and Grief Impact
00:18:30
Speaker
is. So yeah, it is very wise. That was an interesting one for me because again, I had a very good relationship with my brother.
00:18:39
Speaker
And so I did not feel equipped to write about having not good relationship. You know, i didn't have that firsthand experience. And um I really lucked out because my editor, and we didn't know this when we were pitching, but my editor had experienced sibling loss.
00:18:58
Speaker
And so there were a lot of places where she could kind of check me and be like, hey, let's remember that not everyone has happy memories. You know, let's remember these things. And so which was incredibly helpful. But I remember reading through the survey responses and getting one from someone where, you know, the question was something like, it describe your relationship with your sibling.
00:19:20
Speaker
And it was like, oh, we were never very close. If we weren't sisters, we wouldn't be friends. ah We never really related, like all of this stuff. It read as very like indifferent.
00:19:33
Speaker
And the next, then there was a question on what was the experience of losing them like? And the response was like, It was the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I felt like I lost part of myself. You know, I've never recovered. Like it was clearly a deep loss. And I'm looking at these two responses. It looks like it was from two different people.
00:19:54
Speaker
Right. And I was like, I was even going back to look at like the original response form. so was like, what is this the same person? It was the same person. and And so there were responses like that where I would think this is a person I need to interview.
00:20:09
Speaker
I need to get the details on this and I need to dig into this deeper because it's not something that I have firsthand experience with. So there were also some where just like things like that would stick out and the kind of curious researcher in me would be like, I need to scratch the surface here and dig a little deeper. And and it was really helpful.
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah, that that and that makes it even harder than for a person that's going through that, not sorry not to qualify grief because it's hard regardless, but for a person that let's say has that type of experience, if we already feel invalidated in our grief journey, and then aside from that, you're adding to this aspect that people just assume you don't really even care because a person, let's not even say sibling list listen sibling ah relationship right now, anybody that whoever died was someone you had already had a strained relationship with, then people might not check in on you as much because they may not think you cared that much, right?
00:21:14
Speaker
That they were gone. So that that's such a... And it's... It's interesting because sibling loss is kind of the only familial loss where people will say, will ask, were you close?
00:21:31
Speaker
Right. They don't ask you that if your parent dies. They don't ask you that if your spouse dies. They don't ask you that if your child dies. But they'll if they find out your sibling does, they'll say, were you close?
00:21:44
Speaker
As if the answer, your answer to that question will determine how they respond to your loss. Do they give, you know, is there sympathy? Is there empathy?
00:21:56
Speaker
Are you allowed to grieve? Right. If you say no, then it's kind of just dismissed. But if you say no, we weren't close. That doesn't mean you're not grieving.
00:22:07
Speaker
But that's like that's an example of one of those kind of micro. i don't want to say microaggression, but like a micro response where. Everyone may probably has the best of intentions, but there's so much judgment in that question. It's so loaded because you know, if you say no, you're not, then then you're dismissed.
00:22:31
Speaker
but you You mentioned that micro response or micro kind of yeah responses and how they affect us. ah What is the most common question thats that kids get when a sibling has died is usually, how are your parents doing?
00:22:49
Speaker
yeah Is that not right? Yes. Is that not the first thing that they ask? always And the thing that I always say is like, I understand why you're asking about my parents. Of course you're asking about my parents.
00:23:01
Speaker
They experienced a terrible loss and it's very kind that you ask about my parents, but it's strange that people then don't ask how you are doing, right? Or ask how I'm doing first, then ask how my parents are doing.
00:23:16
Speaker
But it's like, the Siblings are are only asked how the parents are doing, not how they themselves are doing.
00:23:29
Speaker
When you... wrote the part about as kids, like not only do we experience our sibling loss, but then we also experience ah parents our parents having lost who they even were within that because we also can lose the support of our parents because they are in, and I'm saying it this way, if whoever's listening doesn't know, I've also experienced a sibling loss. So I'm saying it, including myself in your, I'm not part of your book. You didn't come, you didn't send me the survey, by the way, and you didn't know me. You didn't know me that it didn't reach my ears.
00:24:08
Speaker
Joking. But, um, that the part that just our parents themselves shift and change who they are. So we are grieving the loss of our sibling, they are grieving the loss of their child, but we're also leaving grieving the dynamic and that has shifted between us and our parents. Can you go deeper into that and how that was in your family and how also now it's and it's three of you, you ah is Sam the oldest or Ben was the oldest?
00:24:45
Speaker
Ben was the oldest. but Ben was the oldest. So then how then the dynamics of even the family dynamics changed as well. Yeah.
Dual Loss in Sibling Grief
00:24:56
Speaker
So sibling loss is actually known kind of in the academic literature, grief literature as a dual loss, because when you experience the loss of a sibling, you also in many ways experience the loss of a parent.
00:25:15
Speaker
your parents are never the same because how could they be? Right? Like, I'm not saying it as a judgment. It's a fact. How could you lose a child and be, and go back to being exactly the same as you were before? It's impossible. And we're parents. We're parents. So now yeah we we, as now as we're, as being parents now, which you weren't at 25, but right. You weren't at, you get it. You get that. Yes. Um,
00:25:42
Speaker
Yes. And actually, when I had my my first child, I remember, you know, he was an infant and holding him and sobbing and looking at my mom and saying, you lost this, you know, and and it.
00:26:00
Speaker
It's why there's a section in the book on siblings never known about, you know, having lost a sibling before you were born or when you're so young, you don't remember them. And those losses are are very much diminished because people assume if you didn't know them, you don't grieve them. But your entire life is then in the shadow of that, right? You are now being raised by parents who have experienced the loss of a child.
00:26:27
Speaker
Right. which is not the same as if you were raised by those exact same parents and they hadn't lost a child. because Because how could it be? you know And so I think it's a it's a dual loss and you do lose many aspects of who your parents were before.
00:26:48
Speaker
And I think that's something that people feel like they need to fix or they need to qualify or they need to explain. I don't feel that. I mean, of course my mom isn't the same.
00:27:05
Speaker
It's just what it is, right? and And that's something that I think we all have to just kind of accept and like give some grace. And now not all parents handle it well.
00:27:16
Speaker
And I will say that from the interviews, there were a lot of parents who really expected their surviving children to take care of them and to take on their grief.
00:27:27
Speaker
And I was very fortunate that my parents did not put me in that position. they They very much respected that I was grieving. They validated my grief and they didn't try to burden me with their own grief. But but but nothing's the same, you know, that our family isn't the same when we're all home for a holiday or something, we're not really all home.
00:27:54
Speaker
um And I think there's always that feeling of something missing, someone missing to your question ah on, on kind of the dynamics. It's interesting because, you know, I was the youngest and I'm still the youngest, but,
00:28:11
Speaker
in the While I was writing the book, I asked Sam, did you feel like you had to step up and be the oldest? And he gave examples from early on in the loss where he did feel like he had to, you know, he would, he was saying, you know, that he gave the eulogy at the funeral because he felt like you know, he had to.
00:28:36
Speaker
And, and all of these things he, he did, cause he felt like he had to. And I said, why didn't mom and dad ask you? And he said, no, they didn't ask me to do any of this. I just felt like I'm the oldest now.
00:28:46
Speaker
And this is what Ben would do, or this is what the oldest would do. So I'm going to do it. And, and I asked him if he still feels that way. It's been 15 years and he kind of laughed and he was like, no, no, I'm back to being the middle child.
00:28:59
Speaker
Like I know I'm good. I'm, I, that didn't last long. Um, Which I thought was kind of perfect, I think, for for a lot of people. Like, it doesn't really ever go back.
00:29:10
Speaker
And they try to take on this role or they try to live for both people or, you know, whatever it is. but But i thought I thought it was great of Sam that he could be like, no, no, solidly back as the middle child now. This is where I belong.
00:29:25
Speaker
Yeah, the birth order there. It's like, no, I'll just stick with that. I don't have to change my birth order just because Ben's not here. I could still be the the middle child. So with all the dynamics...
00:29:39
Speaker
changing and the shift. I'm glad your parents did validate you guys' is grief and that you didn't feel like you had to have that burden. You mentioned that part of growing up in ah in an environment in which you may not have known, but in your case, you did know, of course, Ben, somebody might have not known the person that died and yet how that affects the whole ripple effect from there on.
00:30:05
Speaker
Now in that same manner, the parents we that are raising us, we do not know their own their own lore and their own upbringing and how that their parents raising them. So it is ah there's a ah generation that keeps our kind of... grief Grief is an underlying tone in basically in our lives, whether we know it or not.
00:30:28
Speaker
Because even now... us as mothers, we are raising kids already having felt grief ourselves. Yes. And like, right. And already carrying that within ourselves that we are not the same people we would have been.
00:30:47
Speaker
Right. So it's an under an underlying tone tone. Would that be the right word? It's like a theme, a theme in our. And it impacts so much. I mean, there is.
00:31:00
Speaker
ah I know I struggled a lot with kind of postpartum anxiety. And part of it was I was just convinced my son was going to die because my mom lost her firstborn.
00:31:14
Speaker
And so I assumed I would lose mine. And I remember my therapist being like, you know, but you're your first firstborn is a ah toddler in New York City, not in a war zone. You know, your your brother was in the military in a war zone and it didn't matter, like a logic be damned.
00:31:35
Speaker
And I heard that again and again from people, just this assumption that something was going to happen. and One thing I heard, time and time again, that was really interesting. That was certainly something that I have struggled with, but I didn't know was so common was people saying that either they had three kids or they had like very much, you know, considered and and debated and having three kids in case one of them died.
00:32:07
Speaker
Like real contingency planning. they, were afraid if one of them died, they would, then one sibling would be left alone or left as an only child.
00:32:19
Speaker
And I heard that from people who had you know, only one sibling and had lost their only sibling. I heard it from people who had multiple siblings. And so they still had living siblings.
00:32:31
Speaker
um It's something that i struggled with very much. And, and, it it came up time and time again was this idea of like insurance, right? Like this is such a real thing. And so I need to like plan for my children what happens if one of them die.
00:32:53
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, it's like living with this like trauma driven life to some extent, right? You're living based on these type of traumas that again, might have not even occurred to you directly, but even somebody in your family and you might be holding on sometimes to these traumas.
00:33:13
Speaker
beliefs and these fears yeah that may not be your own, but you're holding on. Now, talking regarding that, something you mentioned early on in your book, because of you mentioning the but home you, your parents ah had being in the family,
00:33:31
Speaker
since 1942, which is the year my dad was born. ah And how your ancestors, was it those your great grandparents? Yeah, great grandma.
00:33:43
Speaker
yeah my great grandma great grandma. And that's the name is who your name is. You have the same name, don't you? and Yeah. yeah Yeah. I was named after her. Yeah. And so in that, in that time, they, it was when you, it was something regarding the land that Jewish families could own or not.
00:34:04
Speaker
How has the aspect of even then the cult, the cultural and religious upbringing to in your life had an effect on in your grief.
Comfort in Jewish Mourning Traditions
00:34:18
Speaker
here I will say in I found a lot of comfort in the traditions of Judaism.
00:34:29
Speaker
um I think, you know, when, when everything happened and, and because of the way he died, you know, we could not open the, the casket when it was returned to us. And, you know,
00:34:42
Speaker
there was, you know, for me, a lot of comfort in the fact that like Jews don't do open casket. That's not a thing. And so there was never any expectation. ah you know, the there was no like, oh, we have to figure out what to do now because we can't have a wake.
00:34:57
Speaker
Like that was off the table anyway. um And I found Shiva to be a very, very comforting tradition. And for those who don't know, sheva is a traditional Jewish like period for seven days after the,
00:35:17
Speaker
funeral where you are at home and they're like open hours where people come every day and, and each day you say a prayer. um and so often they'll be like, you know, shivas from six to eight and we'll have this their service at seven and come whenever. And so people just come by and they bring food and they sit with you. And i found that really comforting when that ended and suddenly like,
00:35:45
Speaker
people went back to real life. That was a shock ah for sure. but but I did find a lot of comfort in that, in in a lot of those traditions. I certainly...
00:35:59
Speaker
struggled a lot with more of the like, God piece of it But um that's also very common in Judaism. It's like, it's that's, that's okay. And I think the, the traditions and the community that came out around it was felt like exactly what we needed at that time.
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah, that comfort and the allowing of people knowing in those seven days that you are sitting Shiva, that you are the focus of someone else. Now, in in your book, you also talk about just in history how it changed a little bit of just how grief used to be, like in the Victorian period period of time, to how it is now.
00:36:44
Speaker
And that people not really knowing that you're grieving when you're walking around the world nowadays, when in the past they did. Can you talk about that and how you in your own thoughts, like how you think that there whether there there's a ah ah ah good or bad in that aspect of like maybe people not knowing that we're walking around grieving?
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's something like.
00:37:11
Speaker
I'm really fascinated by things like morning jewelry, you know, like Victorian morning rings that would have like a lock of the person's hair braided in the ring or um different like engravings for them or things like that, where you literally are wearing your grief.
Modern vs Historical Grieving Practices
00:37:30
Speaker
um and And people would recognize, you know, people recognize they know that's a morning ring. um And, the end you know, I kind of joke in the book, like having to wear black for a certain amount of time. Like, I don't actually want anyone to tell me what to wear for any amount time.
00:37:48
Speaker
But also it's there's, it's kind of nice that, that there's no expectation that you go back to normal immediately, right? There are all of these ways in which it's assumed that you will not go back to normal for, for years in some cases. And I think the world we're living in now is so different in that, like, you're lucky if you get five days of a of bereavement leave from your job, and then you have to go back.
00:38:16
Speaker
and And there is no, time it And grief is now a thing to deal with and to like get over, but you don't get over grief. Like that's not how grief works. And I think i think that we live in a time and in a culture, and maybe this is because we have so much information at our fingertips, but people think everything is a problem that can be fixed.
00:38:49
Speaker
and can be solved. And so, oh, well, you're, you know, you're still grieving. Have you read this book? Have you tried this thing? Have you done this thing? Like people want to fix it and they think that that's making it better, but you can't fix grief. You can't make it better.
00:39:06
Speaker
You, it exists. It will always exist. And you learn to live with it and you learn to carry it with you, but it doesn't ever go away. you I think historically there were periods of time where we were better at giving people that grace.
00:39:24
Speaker
um And there was no expectation that you get over it. And now it's very much like, okay, move it along. Like you've had enough time now, you you should be okay.
00:39:36
Speaker
and And that does a lot of people of great, great disservice because it's just not how grief works. Right. And also when grief is the type that people in society don't even acknowledge that you grieve for that. Like, okay, you might be getting five days off of work if your sibling, spouse, child, parent died.
00:39:59
Speaker
But what about when your dog, you know, when our dogs, our pets are, you know, where those are griefs that are not even seen in society as something. as value you're like if You're requesting time off because like they wouldn't even like...
00:40:13
Speaker
understand that. Let's talk about your mum, M-U-M, which when I read it, all I thought was, I live in Texas and in Texas, when I saw the M, I'm like, wait, is she talking about mums? Like the ones that the flowers that the kids wear these mums for homecoming, these big things. So it is the mourner's user manual. So talk about why it is you thought of helping the per the readers come up with our mourners user manual.
00:40:45
Speaker
You know how, you know, when you're like in a conversation you, you you know, there's some exchange or something and you walk away and then 10 minutes later, you come up with the perfect response and you're like, oh, I knew it. Like, that's the thing I should have said. And I didn't say it in the moment.
00:41:05
Speaker
I feel like I have those moments all the time, right? and And it's like, when I need to think of something on command, it's hard. Like there have been times in like a work icebreaker, right? Where they'll say like,
00:41:21
Speaker
favorite movie and my mind goes blank and I'm like, I, what is a movie? I've never seen a movie. Like how would it what's a favorite? Like you can't think.
00:41:33
Speaker
So one of the things that I, you know, felt would be really helpful. It's like when someone texts you and say like, what do you need? Or do you want this thing or whatever?
00:41:46
Speaker
especially when you are in that phase of acute grief and you are mourning, you are not thinking straight. You can't think of anything on command. And then, you know, and then time passes and you're like, oh, I should have asked for this thing or that thing, or, oh, I forgot. I actually hate it when people do this, whatever.
00:42:06
Speaker
And so i felt like when you're reading the book, you're kind of in this right mindset and the mom gives people almost a form to fill out.
00:42:19
Speaker
that so that when they are asked on the spot, they don't actually have to come up with it on the spot. They've already thought about this. So, you know, also just as a reminder to yourself, like, hey, what I'm feeling really down, is it helpful for me to go out with friends?
00:42:37
Speaker
Is it helpful for me to have, you know, a friend over my house? Is it helpful to be alone? Like what has been helpful for me? and And, you know, that mom can change, but it's very much like,
00:42:50
Speaker
kind of laying out some of the things that you might be faced with so that you can think about them a little bit in advance and kind of prepare that response. You know, what am I gonna say when people ask ask me this question or that question? And so that you can kind of process and think through and plan for these things that in many cases you never thought you'd have to do or answer.
00:43:16
Speaker
um And, and in the moment, maybe you say something completely different, but at least you've had the opportunity to be faced with it on your own terms first before getting kind of blindsided by something else.
00:43:36
Speaker
And, and And it's really an opportunity for people to think through how they want to engage with their grief and how they want to engage with the world around them as they are grieving.
00:43:51
Speaker
That is so helpful because you're right. Like we, if it is hard to just think of those things on the spot when we're not grieving, the grief brain is a complete other thing. That's like, just like a mommy brain, you know, when you're pregnant brain, the, you know, grief brain has its own little space as well.
Grief's Impact on Mental Processes
00:44:09
Speaker
Like it really does take up a lot of our energy to grieve that our brain doesn't function the same way.
00:44:16
Speaker
So simple questions sometimes asked to, what would you like me to bring for a meal, like making even that choice. If somebody is offering to bring you a meal, you can't even choose that. So giving a person two options would probably be Right. Do you want pizza or Chinese food? Exactly.
00:44:38
Speaker
Simple. yeah if so Like, do you eat chicken or beef? that but Like that, like very simple um question because again, it doesn't. So that's that's great. So having time to then go through that so that in that moment, you're more readily to to answer. And even if it's mechanical, like a mechanic answer, maybe it's not even...
00:45:01
Speaker
sometimes even truthful in that moment of how it is you feel. At least you feel like you gave an answer sometimes, right? For something, even though like, well, maybe I really did not feel like pizza, but whatever.
00:45:14
Speaker
ah at I know it squeezes well. Yes. And at least I've already like... responded and then that's it. All right. So Annie, is there something I have not asked you? Cause I know there's a lot of the book and of course the readers are, we're going to get into that part of how people can get to read it. But is there something have not asked you that you want to make sure that the listeners get to hear?
00:45:36
Speaker
no I think this has been great. Yeah. got ah Okay. you So there was not like a list. You didn't have like a, a list of the questions she might ask. And I'm like, let me prepare for this one. And that I didn't.
00:45:50
Speaker
Perfect. Yay. We, we did it. So how can people get your book? How can people get in touch with you? Let's tell them more about that. Yes. So the book is called always a sibling, the forgotten mourners guide to grief.
00:46:06
Speaker
Um, it's available wherever books are sold, uh, bookshop.org, Amazon, your local bookstore anywhere. Um, and,
00:46:17
Speaker
People can find me ah on Instagram and all of the social channels at Annie Sklaver Orenstein. So just my name right now.
00:46:28
Speaker
Perfect. And I'll make sure to add that in the show notes so that people can find you that way and be able to order your book. And again, thank you, Annie, not only for honoring your own grief by writing this book, but also honoring Ben's life as well and for bringing him to to us and letting us know a little bit about your brother by sharing that that story of your own grief. Yeah.
00:46:55
Speaker
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I'm glad you were here.
00:47:04
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief.
00:47:17
Speaker
If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
00:47:33
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me.
00:47:45
Speaker
And thanks once again for tuning in to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray In Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.