The One Without a Rank
On the sibling as the only equal in the family, and what it means to lose them.
“It’s a family relationship, but it doesn’t tend to have the hierarchy of most family relationships.”
~ Dr. Ken Doka, Episode 49
Dr. Ken Doka and I spoke about what makes the sibling bond different from every other relationship in a family, in addition to the expected lifelong nature of it.
The sibling relationship has an equality in the family hierarchy that few other family relationships have, save for maybe cousins. We are their peers. Consider a drawing of a traditional family tree or a genogram. Siblings are placed on the same horizontal plane, below the parents and above their own children. Sure, this is in part to show heritage, but does it not represent how we interact in a hierarchical manner with others?
As siblings, we play, wrestle, compete, share, negotiate, and support one another, as equals.
Our ranking in the family is supposed to be equal, even when parents have favorites.
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My brother was a proud member of our high school’s Air Force Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (AFJROTC). Recently I was going through his room at our parents’ house. The room now houses a variety of things, including some of his clothes from the few weeks he stayed there the year before he died, some books, his drawings, model rockets and airplanes he built, and a bag of his ribbons, ranking pins, and name tag from AFJROTC.
Despite us having completely different interests, we each joined several programs the other was in to spend time together, especially when travel was involved. He joined the competitive drum and baton corps I was in. I joined the marching band as the videographer so I could travel on the trips with him. And, despite having fully embraced my bohemian style and attitude in high school, I joined AFJROTC to spend time with him. He, of course, out ranked me.
Yet that only mattered to others. He just called me Angie or his little sister. To Tony, we were equals at home, at school, and anywhere in the world.
AFJROTC gave us both ranks. Pins, ribbons, and ranks in a bag preserved in his childhood bedroom. Our nameplates said the same thing. Our family name and our sibling relationship bonded us and put us on equal ground.
While we looked up to and respected one another, between us there was no ranking. Even when other family members viewed that differently, to us we were equals. Rank never once came between us.
That is the strange grace of a sibling. It is the one bond in a family where the ranks never really stick.
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That equality is the part grief researchers and family theorists keep circling back to, and it is the one I keep thinking about since recording the episode with Dr. Doka.
When a sibling dies, you do not only lose a person. You lose an equal in the family.
You lose one who was in the trenches of childhood beside you, not supervising it. You lose the one you could be petty with, competitive with, unguarded with.
After they are gone, you may still have parents above you and children below you, even other siblings who are on the same horizontal plane of the family tree.
But now you are missing someone who stood where you stood and ranked where you ranked.
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I think this is part of why sibling loss disorients people so deeply, even when they cannot name why. It is a shift in your whole position in the family.
One of your equals is gone. In my case, the only one.
The family rearranges around the empty spot. People tell you to be strong for your parents, to hold it together for the family, and they ask you to step into a hierarchy of grief at the exact moment you lost the one relationship that was never about hierarchy at all.
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If you have lost a sibling, I want to name the thing that may be hard to explain to anyone who has not.
You did not just lose someone you loved. You lost someone who was more equal than most relationships in your family can be.
That is a particular kind of absence. Grieve it as its own loss, not a smaller version of someone else’s.
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There is so much in this week’s episode I want you to hear, including how Dr. Doka thinks about identity, how sibling relationships are experienced across two dimensions, his experience of his sibling relationships, and loss of his own brother.
Please listen wherever you get your podcasts.
A small writing prompt, if any of this landed:
Write about a moment you and your sibling were unmistakably equals. Maybe it was the fight, the joke, the competition no adult could settle. What did it give you to have someone on your level?
Three more prompts arrive tomorrow, free for every subscriber. A longer set arrives later in the week for paid subscribers.
Warmly,
Angela
Tony’s little sister 🐺
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Wild Grief is written by Dr. Angela Dean, PsyD, FT, GTMR (psychologist, thanatologist, and Tony’s surviving sibling). Interactions with The Broken Pack, LLC, Dr. Angela Dean, and its content do not constitute a therapeutic or professional psychological relationship with Dr. Dean. All content is educational and informational, not clinical advice. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please reach out to your local crisis line or warm line, or visit findahelpline.com.
Wild Grief is original work by Dr. Angela Dean and is protected by copyright. You are welcome to share posts via link. Please do not copy, reproduce, or republish content elsewhere without written permission. Certain Broken Pack resources, including A Surviving Sibling’s Bill of Rights, are separately released under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) and may be shared in full, with attribution, for non-commercial use. Those resources will say so explicitly.
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