Holden Caufield: Still relevant?

    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 relate to Holden, the teenage, trash-talking, car-wreck of a main character. As I thought about it, it made sense. I mean, the language is dated.…

    Farrah, Michael, Bonnie, and Denise

    By Michelle Linn-Gust -- When I found out that Farrah Fawcett had anal cancer, I was taken back to the cancer of my friend, Bonnie, who died 3 1/2 years ago. I was with Bonnie almost every day, as long as I was in town, until her death a few months later. Today is my 10th wedding anniversary and it was Bonnie who sewed my wedding dress. Bonnie had the same cancer as Farrah. I had a Farrah haircut in…

    Helping Your Child Cope With Loss

    By Lauren Littauer Briggs -- By the time I was eight, my first brother had died and my second was diagnosed with the same fatal condition.  My great-grandmother had died, but I wasn't allowed at the funeral.  Instead, I peeked through the heating ducts to watch what was going on.  My dog was given away with little explanation and my second brother was placed in a children's home where he could receive the medical attention he needed.  I never saw…

    Getting Through Multiple Loses

    by Harriet Hodgson, Search the Internet, browse a bookstore, and you find hundreds of books about grief. You will find personal stories, tributes to the deceased, grief poetry, text books, work books, and memory books. When I looked for a book about coping with multiple losses I could not find what I needed. As it turned out, friends were my "book" and they comforted me in many ways. Though I remember little about 2007, I remember it as the year…

    Memorial Day: When You Lose a Sibling in War

    A sibling relationship should be a lifelong friendship, but for those losing a brother or sister who served in the military, the pain and sorrow can be overwhelming. Adult siblings left behind must contend with their own grief and shock, adjust to an altered family structure and assume new responsibilities. To help brothers and sisters cope, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, TAPS held its first weekend retreat for siblings in 2008. The retreat was modeled after the organization’s regional…

    Groomin’ and Cryin’: Man Mourns Brother While Watching TV

    By Scott Mastley -- My first- and second-grade daughters, Margo and Molly, were surprised to see their daddy blinking back tears while watching a dog grooming show on TV.  They were successfully avoiding bedtime by snuggling with me on the couch, so I found a show that we could watch together, and even though I had no interest in the Groomer of the Year, it was age-appropriate for them. Then something happened that instantly and emotionally connected me to the…

    Gorgeous short movie about the loss of two siblings—check it out

    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 bond—and make me want to cry. This particular evening was no exception. After the talk, a woman named Chrissy Rubin came up to me and…

    Carrying

    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 for this phenomenon is “continuing bonds.” How people do it varies, but why we do it is more straightforward. We try to carry our siblings…

    What is Disenfranchised Grief?

    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 enough so that I could see the lipstick on her teeth and smell her perfume. “You’ll have to be very good now,” she said, somberly.…

    What a Coincidence!

    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 to Hope's founders), psychologist Heidi Horsley, PsyD, who also lost a sibling, and who now specializes in grief, called my attention to a really spectacular…