Wild Sibling Grief Prompts: Split Second
3 prompts for when you are afraid you are forgetting
Yesterday I wrote about the split second when I didn’t recognize my brother in a photograph, about Valerie’s freight train, and about the fear of making our siblings up.
If any of that landed, these prompts are for you.
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If you want to sit with this a little longer, here are a few prompts to write through this week.
Think back to the last time your brain played a trick on you about your sibling. Not a grief wave, a glitch. Maybe you looked at a picture and did not recognize them for a second. Maybe you tried to summon their laugh and could not. Maybe you stopped yourself mid-sentence because you were not sure if the memory you were telling was real or one you had smoothed over time. Where were you? What did you feel when your brain caught up?
Write about a time you tried to summon something small about your sibling and couldn't. The exact pitch of their laugh. The weight of their hand on your shoulder. The way they said your name when they were annoyed with you. (Tony used to say "Angie" with a singsong pitch. He was one of the few people I still let call me Angie. That singsong still lives somewhere in me, and I hope I don't ever lose it.) Where were you when you reached for it? What came up instead? What did you do with the space where the thing should have been?
When did the freight train last hit? The sudden awareness that too much time had passed since you had thought about them. Where were you? What pulled you out of it, if anything did? What did you do after?
If these prompts helped, the full Wild Grief Prompt Set goes deeper. Paid subscribers get 9 prompts this weekend that explore the silence around names, carrying names forward, and what it means to keep speaking when the world goes quiet.
If one or more of these landed, I'd love to know which one(s).
Warmly,
Angela
Tony’s little sister 🐺
🎧 Listen: Half of Myself: A Surviving Sibling’s Story of Losing Andy with Valerie is out now wherever you listen to podcasts.
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The Broken Pack: Stories of Sibling Loss is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
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