I received this astonishing poem in the mail, along with a letter from the author, Robin Standish, in 2005. Unfortunately, it got lost in the pile of papers on my desk. A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning up (finally), and came across it. I can’t tell you how moved I was, how blown [...]
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Film Review: “Ghosted”
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September 2, 2009
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All I needed to hear about the movie, “Ghosted,” was that it explored the aftermath of grief and loss and, of course, I was interested. Having lost my brother when I was 14, I have had a life-long interest in these topics. “Ghosted” is the story of Sophie Schmitt, a Hamburg-based video artist, and her lover, Aing-Lee, [...]
Film Review: Departures
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August 28, 2009
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“Departures” is the story of Daigo Kobayashi, a passionate cellist with a dream job in an orchestra, who finds himself abruptly out of job — and in huge debt for a very pricey cello — when the orchestra dissolves. What do you do when your dream has fizzled and you’ve got to re-group? You go [...]
How Does Sibling-Loss Affect One’s Parenting?
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August 21, 2009
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By Elizabeth Devita-Raeburn – If you poke around in sibling loss literature, one unanswered question you come across is–does losing a sibling make sibling survivors more or less likely to have children? And do they tend to have “extra” children, just in case they lose one? FYI, I don’t have an answer to this. In [...]
Holden Caufield: Still relevant?
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July 7, 2009
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First off, I love J.D. Salinger and all of his books. So I was surprised when, as my step-kids went through that particular reading phase in high school when they were assigned Catcher in the Rye, they reported that they kind of hated it. Whaaaat? One big problem, they said, was that they couldn’t really [...]
Gorgeous short movie about the loss of two siblings—check it out
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May 8, 2009
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So, a few months back, I gave a talk about sibling loss at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. As you might imagine, there tend to be quite a few bereft siblings in the audience at these things. And they all have stories. Amazing, sad, beautiful ones that both elate me—because they’re a celebration of the [...]
Carrying
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May 8, 2009
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Okay, I talk about “carrying” a lot, with regard to sibling loss. What do I mean by that? I mean the tendency we surviving siblings have to find a way to “carry” our lost siblings forward into our present-day lives. It’s a way of continuing the relationship with some one who is gone—in fact, grief-speak [...]
What is Disenfranchised Grief?
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May 8, 2009
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When I was 14, my brother and only sibling, Ted, died. One of my more memorable experiences from that time is of standing next to his grave, watching, devastated, as they lowered his casket into the ground. A woman separated herself from the crowd, leaned down, took me by the arm, and leaned in, close [...]
What a Coincidence!
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May 8, 2009
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Yesterday I posted on a new study that looked at the impact of losing an infant sibling when you were very young, or even before you were born. I commented that, though understudied, the stories I’d heard from people suggested that this was a huge—huge!—life event. Then last night, my friend (and one of Open [...]
The Impact of Losing an Infant Sibling
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May 8, 2009
1 Response
When I was working on my book, I interviewed a couple of people who either lost siblings very early in that sibling’s life, i.e. in infancy (and were thus very young themselves) or who were born after the death of an infant sibling. I didn’t have enough people to make a huge case, but it [...]
Reminders of a Brother Who Rarely Saw the Sky
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December 20, 2008
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By Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn – A few years ago, I ended up at the American Folk Art Museum quite by accident. A friend was visiting from out of town, and we’d intended to go to the newly opened MOMA. But the lines were insane. Next door, at the AFAM, however, there were no lines at all. [...]
Elizabeth Devita-Raeburn: Death of a Sibling
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July 7, 2005
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HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART Death of a Sibling Host: Dr. Gloria Horsley With guest: Elizabeth Devita-Raeburn July 7, 2005 G: Welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart. There are no simple or quick solutions to dealing with death. Each one of us is unique and special as are our relationships and our responses to loss. Healing [...]
