Don't Let it Be the Last Time
One question. One name. That's all it takes.
“There are three deaths: the first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.”
~ David Eagleman, Sum
Many years before Tony died, before I knew much about sibling loss at all, a friend’s sister died. I showed up for her. I sat with her. I helped book a flight for her, and I helped her create a project to stay connected to her sister. I didn’t have a framework for it yet. I just knew she needed to keep her sister close, and I helped her find a way to do that.
Later, when I was going through significant challenges in my own life, she sat in my kitchen and told me I wasn’t allowed to be sad. She was not joking. She adamantly berated me for being upset about circumstances that had warranted my therapist at the time telling me, “You have been through more difficult things than most people have in their entire life.” But this now former friend insisted that because of what I do, because I’m a psychologist, I should know how to handle hard things. That because I had the tools, being upset didn’t make sense. (Don’t worry, through my tears I kicked her out of my house.)
I carried that for a long time not because I believed her, but because I wondered how many other people thought the same thing and just never said it.
🐺
When I unintentionally stepped back from the podcast and from Instagram for a while over the past year or two, some people reached out because they genuinely saw me. They didn’t need anything from me. They were concerned, and they just wanted me to know they were there.
Earla Legault was one of those people. She’d send messages, sometimes just a photo of a rainbow or a pink sky that reminded her of Leigh-Ann. She didn’t ask how I was doing in that way that requires you to pretend or offer socially normed “fine” responses. She just showed up in my inbox or my DMs with something beautiful and let me know she was thinking of me.
She told me later that she had a sense I was overwhelmed. She was right. She could see it because she’d lived it, the weight of carrying your own grief while also holding space for everyone else’s.
Not everyone who reached out during that time came with the same energy. Some people showed up with demands or expectations, not support. It was as if my stepping back was an inconvenience rather than a necessity. I don’t say that with bitterness. I say it because I think bereaved siblings will recognize the feeling. There are people who see your grief, and there are people who see past it to what they need from you.
Earla saw me in the way she sees every bereaved sibling she meets.
🐺
In this week’s podcast episode, Earla told me something that stopped me mid-conversation. She said the first thing she does when she meets a bereaved sibling is ask them their sibling’s name. Not how they died. Not how long ago. Just the name.
One woman told her, “You are the first person that has asked me that since he died in 1992.”
Decades. Decades without someone asking her brother’s name.
I think about that third death from the Eagleman quote. We can’t prevent the first. We can’t prevent the second. But the third one? That one is in our hands. Every time we speak our sibling’s name, every time someone asks us about them, every time we answer, we are holding that third death at bay.
And every time someone doesn’t ask, every time the room goes quiet when we mention them, every time someone changes the subject because they think enough time has passed, that silence inches us closer to it.
We talk about disenfranchised grief. We talk about the grief hierarchy that puts siblings somewhere near the bottom. But sometimes the simplest way to describe what bereaved siblings experience is this: people stop asking or saying the name. Eventually, they stop saying it altogether.
🐺
Earla lost her younger sister Leigh-Ann to pancreatic cancer twelve years ago. She was Leigh-Ann’s caregiver for three months. Their house of two became a house of five and a long goodbye.
There is so much in this episode I want you to hear, so please listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Right now, I want to come back to the name and to the one simple question. What was your sibling’s name?
It costs nothing. It means everything. And it keeps that third death from arriving.
🐺
Tony.
That’s my brother’s name. And I will never stop saying it.
If you’re reading this and you have a sibling who died, I want you to hold their name right now whether that is out loud or in your head. Which feels right? They are still your sibling. They matter. You matter, and someone should be asking.
🐺
If this is landing somewhere in you, try writing on this:
When was the last time someone asked you your sibling’s name, not how they died, not how you’re doing, just their name? What did that feel like? And if it hasn’t happened, what do you imagine it would feel like to hear someone ask?
Write for five minutes. No editing, no judgment. Just let it come.
Stay tuned for a few more free prompts tomorrow. The full Wild Grief Prompt Set for this theme (9 prompts with reflection questions) will be available for paid subscribers this weekend.
If any of this resonated, send it to someone who might need it. Or hold onto it for yourself. Both matter.
🎧 A Surviving Sibling’s Story of Caregiving, Loss, and Finding Joy Again
Warmly,
Angela
Tony’s little sister 🐺
The Broken Pack: Stories of Sibling Loss is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Follow us on Instagram