July 10, 2024 • 40 mins
Annie Orenstein, author of the newly released book "Always A Silbing: The Forgotten Mourner's Guide To Grief" joins us to talk about her big brother Ben who died during military service in Afghanistan. She explains how that led to her using her researcher brain to interview other bereaved siblings and eventually writing this beautiful resource of a book to validate the experience of millions of siblings whose grief can go unnoticed.
For links to the book as well as Annie's social media, visit her website- www.annieorenstein.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Mandy (00:01):
Hello and welcome back to the Grief Trails podcast.
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Today is the last episode ofseason two, and we are ending on
an incredibly high note with ourguest today, Annie Orenstein.
Annie is the author of the book,Always a Sibling, The Forgotten
Mourner's Guide to Grief.
(01:03):
She's also a researcher, andshe's here to talk to us about
losing her big brother, Ben, andeverything she learned from
interviewing other grievingsiblings.
We had such a genuine connectionas two sisters who've walked
this specific path of grief, andI truly hope that you enjoy
listening in to the interview..
Okay, so, I am thrilled to talkto you.
(01:25):
I just finished your book, and Ihave a million place markers in
it.
As a sister who has lost abrother you know, I've been
through sibling loss, and it isso unique, and I've also lost my
mom, and so I feel like I havethis comparison, and When I lost
my mom, there's thisfoundational book out there for
(01:45):
women who've lost their momscalled Motherless Daughters, and
I've looked at that as sort of atouchstone book.
And I wasn't able to findanything like that for sibling
loss, and it isn't until I sawyour book that I feel like you
I've really taken that place onthe bookshelf where it can be
this resource for siblings.
But before we get all ahead ofourselves and talk about your
(02:06):
book, I first wanted to ask youto tell us about Ben.
Tell me about who Ben was to youas a brother, what your
relationship was like, and yeah,just fill us in.
Annie (02:18):
Absolutely.
I mean, first of all, thank youfor having me.
Thank you for reading the book.
I'm sure we'll get into itlater, but kind of everything
you said of, of where that bookcould live has been kind of my
dream.
So thank you.
So I'm the youngest and theyoungest of three and the little
sister, and that was very much acore part of my identity being
(02:41):
the little sister the two olderbrothers.
One four years older than me andone eight years older than me.
My mom said that she loved kindof having babies.
And so when someone was pottytrained and out of diapers, she
would have another one.
So we're all, four years apart,very evenly spaced.
And you know, I think reallysince my very first memory, they
(03:03):
were my idols.
You know, I, I looked up to themin every, every possible way.
And Ben was the oldest and hereally, you know, there are a
lot of kind of stereotypes aboutbirth order and all of that.
And, you know, he really was theringleader.
He was the responsible one.
(03:25):
And he was the one who was kindof left in charge of us, I
think, in a lot of ways,emotionally sometimes and
physically other times.
You know, but I really he was hewas everything, you know, and I
think in hindsight and nowknowing what I know and learning
everything I have through theresearch of the book, I think,
(03:45):
what I realized is that he was avery kind of strong attachment
figure for me, a very, you know,strong and healthy, very healthy
attachment figure for me.
And and as I, grew up, it feltlike we only got closer with an
eight year age difference, youknow.
(04:05):
When he graduated high school, Iwas only 10 years old.
We didn't have a ton in common,but by the time I was in high
school and college we werereally kind of relating to each
other a lot more as equals.
And that was, Just the highlightof my life, you know, the fact
that that now these big brothersgot to be my friends and and
(04:25):
people I hung out with likepeers just blew my mind and was
at every time we would kind ofhang out without our parents
around like adults.
It was like.
The best night of my life, youknow, and they were my best
friends and closest confidantsand in many ways, and I think,
(04:47):
you know, a lot of people withmultiple siblings have this, but
like they played very differentroles for me.
And I talk about this in thebook where Sam, my middle
brother, you know, something waswrong.
Sam was the one I would call ifI wanted to be distracted, if I
wanted to forget about it, to,you know, be kind of whisked
away.
And Ben was the one to call if Iwanted.
Really work it out, you know,and really talk through it and
(05:10):
and that's a really scary personto lose.
Mandy (05:13):
Yeah.
Annie (05:14):
And he He was in the reserves, the Army reserves, and
he was deployed for the firsttime in 2006 to the Horn of
Africa.
And he was then called up on aStop-loss order in 2009 and
deployed to Afghanistan.
And almost exactly three monthsinto his deployment, he was
(05:39):
killed by a suicide bomber whileon foot patrol.
They were going, they thoughtthey were going to meet the
leader of a local village and itwas, you know, it seems a trap.
And I was 25 in grad school andmy world just crumbled.
To live.
(06:00):
You know, such a strongattachment figure and someone,
the person who kind of knows youbetter than you know you and who
had that, place coupled withbeing 25 years old and all of
these things, it it was not apretty time.
It was, it was very dark.
(06:20):
And and I write about that a lotin the book, as you mentioned,
but I think I was.
Just completely lost.
I didn't know what to do or howto, how to exist in this world.
I, I had never existed in aworld without him in it.
And I didn't know how to dothat.
Mandy (06:41):
I mean, there's so much I could ask about the different
pieces that you've mentioned,but you bring up in the book
that more people have siblingsthan fathers.
in their lives, which was mindblowing to me.
And, but also the fact that wespend so much of our time with
our siblings, like it's adifferent relationship than we
(07:02):
have with anyone else, becausethey're there through all of
these different developmentalstages.
They're usually right alongsideyou for a lot of things
happening in the house.
And then, you know, Like youmentioned, you transition once
you become an adult and you sortof morph your relationship with
your sibling, whether it wascontentious as children or not
oftentimes that relationshipchanges in ways and, and you
(07:25):
sound like you had such a closerelationship with them and all
of that combined, I think itgoes to the difficulty that
comes when, when we losesomebody like that in our lives.
But then adding in the fact thatit was a sudden loss and
unexpected, despite him being inthe military, I think some
people will say, well, you know,you always know that that's,
(07:46):
that's a risk that comes withthe territory, but knowing that
something's a risk and actuallyhaving something happen is
completely different.
Annie (07:55):
And it's interesting you say that because I was convinced
that he was going to be killed.
I was sure of it.
I, you know, Would tell anyonewho would listen.
I tried to convince him to stayhome.
And so as convinced as I was,then it happened.
(08:15):
And I was like, no, no, nope.
This is not, this is not whatwas supposed to happen.
This is not the plan.
And, and for the book, Iinterviewed a lot of, of,
surviving siblings, and I wasreally interested to hear from
folks who who experienced, youknow, their sibling succumbed to
a prolonged illness where theyvery much knew it was coming,
(08:38):
were told they were coming.
And even those siblings who hadbeen preparing themselves, some
cases for years, Would tell methat that when it happened, they
were shocked and then they wereshocked by the fact that they
were shocked, you know But butall of these situations same
with you know People whostruggled with addiction and
(08:59):
mental health issues who hadattempted to take their own
lives in the past siblings werestill surprised when it happened
and I I still can't totally wrapmy I guess I can't I Both can
and can't understand it But Ithink it's just that there's
nothing, there's no way toprepare yourself for a set of
(09:22):
powerful emotions that you havenever felt before.
And so you can reason it, andyou can try to imagine what it
would be like, but you have noreference point.
So you can't actually, you canlull yourself into this false
sense of security, and thinkthat you know it, but it's like
having a child.
You can't imagine it until youexperience it.
(09:45):
You know, those hormones arerushing through your body and,
and then you're like, Oh, I hadno idea, you know?
And, and I think in a lot ofways, grief is very similar.
Mandy (09:55):
Yeah, and you say beforehand you can reason
through it, but when it happens,it's like that reason, that part
of your brain shuts off.
You have no ability to reasonthrough anything and, you know,
your brain's trying to protectyou.
And so it's telling you, no, ofcourse this didn't really
happen.
And like I saw in your book andyou say like, well, how do I
know it was really him?
(10:16):
How do I know he's not just lostout there and the army messed up
and they're misidentifying him?
And our brains can and convinceus of things like that.
And it's fascinating.
And I think it's not just you.
I think that's an importantpoint to make is people think,
wow, like I really was losing mymind not being willing to
(10:36):
believe what was so clearly afact in front of me.
But that's a very commonfeeling.
And that's one of the things Ilove about your book, is that
you kind of go through thesethings that not everyone
realizes is such a commonexperience in grief and bring it
to light.
And you also show how it can beapplied to multiple different
types of losses.
So not just sudden loss, butalso prolonged loss and loss
(11:00):
related to mental illness andaddiction and all of those
things.
That's incredibly helpful.
Annie (11:05):
During the interviews, There would always be a moment
where someone, once someone wascomfortable, where they would
say, you know, I don't know ifyou've heard this from anyone
else, but, or this is probably areally weird thing to say, but,
or, you know, kind ofembarrassed to admit this, but,
(11:26):
and whatever came after the butwas something that I had already
heard from someone else.
And.
And so in my head as aresearcher, I'm like, Oh, we
have a pattern here, right?
This is more than one datapoint.
Maybe there's something here todig into from a very analytical
perspective.
But what I quickly realized waswhen I would tell the person,
(11:48):
no, you're actually not thefirst one who told me that I,
you know, I've heard that fromother people, you could see the
relief in their body.
And, and they would kind of, Youknow, their eyes would get wide
and they would want to knowmore.
They would become more curiousabout their own grief and their
own experience by hearing aboutother people's.
(12:11):
And that kind of reflectingduring these sessions, I could
see how powerful it was.
And so very quickly, I realized,okay, any of these things that
someone, you know, qualifies asthinking is weird.
I have to be sure I talk aboutthis in the book because They
(12:31):
have no idea how common it is,and it seems that knowing how
common it is helps.
And so I, I kind of would alwaysnote those things in my notes,
and be like, someone thinks thisis weird, dig into it, and write
about it.
Mandy (12:49):
Yeah, I mean, you really went deep into things that I
think are hard to talk about.
And one of those things comesdown to parents, and you know, a
parent has lost their child, andthat is a big deal.
And yet you are also their childand you've had your own loss and
like how you navigate thatrelationship with your parents
and what that looks like in eachfamily and how different it can
(13:10):
be, but also just the strain itcan put on those relationships
or the way it could delay yourown grief because you're trying
to be there for your parents asthey grieve their loss of their
child and you defer your ownneeds through that whole time.
I just found that whole sectionto be so honest because it's.
That happens all the time, butit's not talked about.
Annie (13:35):
Yeah, and I think that chapter was really difficult to
write, because I kept imaginingmy parents reading it.
Yeah.
And, you know, wondering whatthey were going to take away
from it.
And I heard some reallyhorrific, upsetting stories of
how parents treated theirsurviving children.
And I also heard a lot ofstories of parents Who were
(13:57):
doing their best, and sometimestheir best was like really good,
and sometimes their best waspretty terrible, but they were
trying, and I think one thing Iwrestled with in that section is
I think when we talk about thesesituations where it seems like
there's no good, solution.
(14:18):
We try to force a solution,right?
Like, well, but even though it'snot perfect, this is the way to
do it.
And I think what I was trying toconvey in that chapter is like,
you know, it's just a badsituation.
Your parents can't be there foryou like they would have
otherwise because they'regrieving and you can't put your
(14:38):
grief aside to only focus onthem because you're grieving
too, and you have lost a pieceof your parent.
And.
You're right that nothing willbe the same.
Period.
Right?
There's no, you want to be like,but here's what you can do to
somehow make it better.
And the truth is you kind ofcan't.
(14:58):
The best thing you can do isunderstand, give each other
grace and, you know, give eachother the opportunities to find
someone who can support you and,you know, be there for each
other.
But there's no like magicalsolution except to just kind of
be there.
Acknowledge that everyone isliving in an imperfect situation
(15:24):
and an imperfect world andThat's the reality of
Mandy (15:27):
it.
It reminds me of how you endyour book.
It's like, well, I can't tiethis up in a bow for you.
Like, I can't make this better.
And even though the book isover, it doesn't mean that,
like, your grief is over, andthat your sibling is back, and
the world is better, and it'sthe same kind of thing.
Like, you're in a difficultsituation, and there are no
right answers.
There is no instruction manual.
(15:48):
I think your book comes reallyclose to being not an
instruction manual, but just acomfort in acknowledging.
The different aspects that cancome up and that there is no
right or wrong response and, andyou also go into different types
of grief that people experience,which not everyone knows about
all the different types ofgriefs that are out there.
(16:09):
And I, I think that can bereally helpful for people as
well.
Annie (16:12):
Yeah, I certainly didn't know about them until I started
reading the book.
I knew about complicated griefbecause my therapist had talked
to me about it.
And I knew about traumatic griefbecause my mother had called me,
probably, Nine years, eight,nine years after my brother died
(16:33):
and in a whisper, has anytherapist ever told you about
traumatic grief?
And I was like, no, what are youtalking about?
She was like, someone just toldme about this.
And it was like, How had no onetold about this, right?
Like we had even gone totherapy, like we were trying
(16:55):
And, and I think there is justso much power in having the
knowledge and understanding, youknow, again, okay, I'm not
crazy.
This is enough of a thing thatit even has a name.
And, knowing, oh, I do thisweird thing and my grief is
often the type of grief you'reexperiencing.
(17:15):
And so, knowing, just havingthat information, I think, kind
of empowers you to examine it alittle bit more.
And, and send a little bit morecuriosity there and figure out
if there's another way to do it.
And so I think that's a lot of,Why I was trying to give all of
this information is like you canpick out the pieces that
(17:39):
resonate with you and try toexamine them a bit more.
Mandy (17:43):
So how long after your brother's death did you realize
that you were going to write abook?
Annie (17:49):
About nine, nine and a half years after he died, I knew
I wanted to do some kind ofproject.
I wanted to do something aheadof the 10 year anniversary.
And I was a researcher and Iknew I could do interviews and
so I thought what I wanted to dowas interview his friends and
(18:12):
family and capture all of thestories about him that I didn't
know before people reallystarted to forget.
And the first person I talked toabout it was my brother Sam.
And he was like, I think this isa great idea.
Sounds like a podcast.
And I was like, it does soundlike a podcast.
(18:32):
I have no idea how to do it.
And it never, it was like, itsounded like a podcast, but it
podcast didn't feel right.
And I was like, maybe it'll be abook.
I didn't know what it was goingto be or if it was going to be
anything more than transcriptsof interviews that I could give
my children and my nieces andnephews so that they could learn
about their uncle.
(18:54):
And then, and then at somepoint, I realized I wanted, it
would be written, but I stillthought it would be written, and
it would be more of a storyabout Ben.
Mandy (19:06):
Yeah, that's what I'm curious about.
How did you go from, like, why,what made you veer from Menmar
to what you ended up doing,which was more incorporating
your own story, but alsoincluding other people's
stories, other people'sperspectives, and research all
in one package.
Annie (19:24):
So I got a, I had this proposal and the book was about
Ben written like an oralhistory, and I got an agent, and
she said, and I had at thatpoint published an essay in
time, and she said, really likeyour writing, I loved your piece
in time.
But you're not in this book andwould you be willing to put
(19:47):
yourself in the book and youknow, write it more in the style
of this essay?
And I said, yes.
So then I came up with anotherversion of the proposal, which
was kind of two timelines and itwas Ben Kepp journals for years,
you know, we had probablydecades worth of journals.
And so I thought, His timeline,which would be kind of the last
(20:12):
year of his life and hisdeployment could be written
through journal entries andletters and interviews.
And mine would be about thefirst few years after the death.
And when we eventually took thatout to publishers they weren't
that into that version, but alot of them came back and said,
we do see your argument thatthere aren't any sibling loss
(20:35):
books.
And if you'd be interested inwriting.
a book on sibling loss, you canbring it back.
And my first reaction was no,very adamant no.
I was like, you know, what am Igoing to write?
Like 10 ways to get over yourdead brother?
Like there's no way, you know,and I hadn't really found many
(20:57):
grief books that had helped meat that point.
And so I couldn't, I don't wantto write a book that I wouldn't
want to read.
And I couldn't really imagine agrief book.
like how I could write thatgrief book.
And then I started thinkingabout right after Ben died, when
I also tried to find a book, youknow, like was your experience.
(21:19):
I tried to find a book onSibling Loss and there was
nothing.
And I saw books on losingparents and, and friends and
children and pets, but nothingabout a sibling.
And I thought that meant that Iwasn't allowed to grieve or that
I shouldn't be grieving.
And so I started thinking moreand more, what if I wrote the
book 25 year old Annie waslooking for in the bookstore,
(21:43):
and I knew that my story wasvery unique.
Right?
Military loss, it has its ownunique piece.
The way you're treated by yourcommunity afterwards is very
different than most other typesof loss.
So I knew I couldn't write abroad, broadly encompassing,
helpful book from only myperspective.
Mandy (22:06):
Yeah.
Annie (22:06):
And so again, I was like, well, I'm a researcher.
I know how to interview people.
And I put together this newversion of the book, which is
what it is now, where it's Ben'sstory and my story were still in
there, but it was also full ofstories from surviving siblings
who had different types ofrelationships, different
(22:27):
experiences and loss and ingrief.
And I thought in that way, Icould write more broadly about
the experience because I coulduse their stories to supplement
my own and to understand it abit more.
And so that's how it.
Landed where it finally did.
Mandy (22:45):
That's incredible.
And then once you're collectingall of these interviews and
collecting all this information,I mean, that's in and of itself
a lot to distill down how muchof your own story do you put
into the book?
And how much do you put in ofother people's?
And where do you find thatbalance?
Because I think as humans, Wetend to want to tell our own
(23:08):
stories more, which is totallynatural, but I think you found a
really healthy balance of yourown experience, and then really
sprinkling in all these otherpeople's experiences, like, was
that, did that take multiplerevisions, or how did you find
that balance?
Annie (23:25):
It's funny, it was kind of the opposite for me because
in my professional work as aresearcher, I have to stay
completely unbiased and my storyhas no place in my finding.
So it actually was kind of theopposite experience where my
editor would be like, What wereyou you are not in this chapter,
like, where, you know, let'slet's hear more about you and
(23:48):
about Ben, and so it, especiallyin the beginning, it took a
little more encouragement for meto talk about my own story.
And then there are otherchapters where I think.
My story is a lot of it, likewhen I talk about things that
are very, that I experiencedvery deeply, I think there's
just more of me in thosechapters.
(24:08):
But it, it was kind of theopposite, where, where my
initial instinct was to telleverything fully through other
people's stories, and I had tokeep kind of reminding myself,
like, nope, I'm, I need to be inthis book too.
That's fascinating.
Mandy (24:23):
You mentioned Ben's journals.
I want to touch on that a littlebit.
A, I think journaling is not,you know, something everyone
does, right?
So if your sibling kept ajournal, I think that feels very
special and feels like you get apiece of them that you would not
have otherwise had.
I know that in your book, yousay you didn't read those
(24:46):
journals for a long time.
Like, which 10 years
Annie (24:50):
till I started doing interviews?
Mandy (24:51):
That is fascinating to me.
My brother was not a journalkeeper per se, like your brother
was, where he had multiplejournals.
He had one journal, and it waskept towards the end of his
life, or probably that last yearof his life.
And I read it before hisfuneral.
Like, I stayed up late at nighton the floor like, devouring and
(25:13):
sobbing.
I'm like And the whole time Ifelt nothing but guilt for
reading it, because I was like,these are not words for me.
Like, this information isn'tinformation for me.
And yet, I could not stopreading it.
And I read it cover to cover,and then I offered it to my
brother.
And I was like, look, he has ajournal, you should read the
(25:33):
journal.
He was like, I can't, it's notmy place.
And I was just like, ah, then Ifelt like a terrible person.
So Yeah.
Tell me, talk to me about that.
And like, how did you come toterms with like the fact that
you were reading his innerthoughts?
Annie (25:48):
So, yes, we had all these journals.
They were kind of sprinkledaround.
A lot of them were at my parentshouse.
But then he had put his stuff instorage.
So some of it was in storage.
And, you know, he had one or twojournals with him that didn't
get returned until.
A while after and they werethere, but I think again, like I
(26:13):
am the little sister through andthrough and I don't know what
exactly I thought would happen,but like I was so trained
because he had kept journalssince I was little.
I was so trained to never touchthose journals.
Like, I don't know if I thoughtI was going to get struck by
(26:33):
lightning or what exactly wouldhappen, but I just didn't even
think about it.
I was like, we don't read those.
It didn't, the option of readingit didn't cross my mind.
My, my family still hasn't readthem.
I think they're going to and I,Now have them and you have kind
(26:54):
of catalog them.
But it was really interestingbecause I had reached out to a
colleague of mine.
Whose sister Sandra bland diedunder suspicious circumstances
and police custody, and she hadalso kept.
Diary.
And they had read them like you,you know, shortly after.
(27:15):
And, and I asked her about itand she too could not believe
that I had not read them.
And she was like, if you'rewaiting for a sign, this is your
sign.
You have permission.
And then I just devoured youknow, I kind of collected them
all and would read them and thenrun and make my husband read
them.
And It was, I don't know, I, Iwish someone had encouraged me
(27:39):
to read them earlier, you know,I, I wish someone had told me it
was okay, I think I felt like Ineeded permission, but no one in
my family was touching them, soI wasn't going to get
permission, you know, not thatthey were telling me not to, but
they weren't going to tell me toread them, and and I felt like
that was ultimately what Ineeded was for someone to say
(27:59):
like, it's okay, you can readthis, and And now I treasure it.
Mandy (28:04):
Yeah, I think there's something that draws us to
things like the journal orthings like The stories that you
sought out from his friends and,and people who knew him in other
aspects of life where you didn'tknow him, because we know that
everything we know about oursibling Is now cut off like
(28:25):
there is no opportunity to getto know them on another level
anymore.
And so any way that we can likefill in those gaps for ourself
and feel like we're stillmeeting who they were as a whole
person rather than just abrother or sister.
I think that's really powerful,but I never thought about that.
Annie (28:45):
Kind of fills the void, right?
You know, it gives you more.
Nuggets.
More little pieces ofinformation and more pieces of
them.
They become more, more whole.
Yeah.
Which is so important whenthey're not there
Mandy (29:02):
anymore.
Yeah.
And I, I like that we had twovery different experiences with
that because I think it justgoes to show that like,
Everyone's going to handle itdifferently and you can make the
decision for yourself whetherthat's something that you want
to, you know, explore if yoursibling does have something like
that and you've been holdingback, you know, to think about
(29:23):
what you've said about feelinglike you needed permission, but
then finding that it was okayonce you did read them.
Annie (29:29):
Yeah.
And I do think there is a goodchance that I was not ready to
read them when he first died.
You know, it maybe is ultimatelyfor the best.
That it took me so long,obviously I'll never know, but I
do like to think that I readthem when I was ready to read
them and I'm grateful that theystill existed at that point.
Mandy (29:51):
Yeah, so when you started this project and you were mostly
interviewing people who knewBen, Well, I'm trying to
document like a life history, alife story of his what have you
chosen to do with with thatinformation, those interviews
that you did?
Are you just documenting thatfor your, your children, your
(30:12):
family?
Have you made it into anything?
Or that was just like raw copiesthat you're just keeping for
your family?
Or are you embarking on aseparate project for something
else?
Such a good question.
Annie (30:22):
No one, no one has asked me that.
Right now, they're just the rawcopies and the transcripts and,
I think of them as, you know, ifnothing else, then they are they
document a lot of Ben's life andI can share that with his nieces
and nephews.
And so that's kind of where theysit at the moment.
(30:46):
I do think about.
Making something else out ofthem.
But I don't think I know exactlywhat that is yet, and I find a
lot of comfort just knowing thatthey exist for now.
But yeah, I don't, I don't knowyet if they'll live beyond that.
Mandy (31:02):
Wow, I was very curious reading, so I'm glad that I got
to ask.
I love that you, you reallybring in a lot of humor to it,
too.
It's such a heavy, serioustopic.
We're talking about the death ofour siblings, which happens very
out of the natural order ofthings.
And You do a really brilliantjob of bringing in levity.
(31:23):
One of my favorite parts waswhen you were talking about,
like, telling your brain, like,okay, I'm going into this really
important meeting.
Hold it together for the nexthour.
Every time.
Your brain is like okay, I'mgonna immediately start crying.
Annie (31:39):
Brains like, hey, remember that time your brother
died?
Yes.
You're like, why now?
I think, like, I wrote, youknow, I worked full time, I have
kids, and I wrote a lot of thebook either very early in the
morning or on weekends, and soI, the first draft, especially,
(32:01):
you know, I had all my notes ofthe facts and the figures and
the interview quotes.
But then what, what links themtogether, at least in that first
draft, a lot of it was stream ofconsciousness, and I think I
would get to a point in writingit or reading it where, like, I
needed some comedic relief formyself, you know, that's my own
(32:21):
kind of, you know, Reaction ordefense mechanism is to just
like find a way to laugh.
And so I was putting all ofthese jokes in, I think just for
my own psyche.
Like I just needed the levityand the break.
And then when I would reread adraft.
Sometimes, you know, monthslater, because I wrote the whole
(32:43):
thing longhand first and thentranscribed it.
So it was like months betweenwhen I would first write
something and then read it.
And I'm like, I think that'sactually funny.
Like, I'm going to try keepingthis in for one more draft.
And obviously most of them didnot make it, but I think it was
just, it was what I needed to beable to get through the content.
(33:05):
And then I felt like, Maybeother people would also
appreciate these moments to takea breath.
Mandy (33:12):
Wow.
I'm still now totally hung up onthe fact that you just said you
wrote this longhand first.
I
Annie (33:17):
did.
I don't know if it was smart ornot, but I just love writing by
hand, and I get so distracted oncomputers, and I spend all day
looking at screens, and I justdon't like looking at screens.
Towards the end, there was kindof a time crunch, and I think
the last like three chapters.
I drafted on the computer.
But it felt really good to writeit out longhand.
(33:39):
It just took, it wasn't as fast.
Mandy (33:44):
Yeah, and longhand, you can feel like, wow, I wrote so
much.
And then if you put it in thecomputer, you're like, no, I
didn't.
Annie (33:52):
That felt great because I wouldn't transcribe it.
And I would transcribe every,like, Four or five chapters.
So they were big enough chunksthat yeah, if I wrote in the
mornings, I'd be like, I wasamazing.
I wrote eight pages, you know,and then you type it up and it
was much shorter.
But when you type up fivechapters at once, it, it wasn't
(34:13):
as shocking, but periodically Iwould get asked about my word
count and I was like, who knows?
Mandy (34:22):
Oh my gosh, I love hearing about everyone's process
because everyone is sodifferent.
I went to a writing conference.
It's totally not to do withsibling loss, but I went to a
writing conference and I didn'tknow if people were going to
bring laptops to the session orjust paper and notebook and pen.
And so I brought a notebook andpen.
I never write with that.
And so then there was a writingprompt and I was so lost because
(34:45):
it was just not the medium thatI write in.
And so then the next day, Ibrought my laptop because a
bunch of people had laptops andrealized that it was, like, my
process is much more on acomputer.
So I love to hear that everyoneis different in that way.
Okay.
Back to Ben and back to siblingsI'm going to wrap this up, but I
wondered if you, one of thethings I liked in the book is
(35:07):
that you said during yourinterviews, you would write down
the person's sibling's name on apiece of paper in front of you
so that you didn't forget whattheir name was, but also just as
a way of honoring that personstill and recognizing that like
by us talking about them, by ussaying their name, we're keeping
them here with us or in this.
(35:28):
This realm in some way and I, Ithink that's really beautiful
and I try to do the same thing.
And so I just wanted to end withsome little fun tidbit or memory
or something of them that youkeep with you.
Annie (35:42):
Sorry to put you on the spot.
No, no, it's such a goodquestion.
And actually I have some stuffright behind me.
I know no one can see me, butjust to, to think of my own
memory invent something that Benhad saved.
A mix tape that I had made himlike a cassette tape that, let's
(36:05):
see, I write on the cover thatmy bat mitzvah is coming up.
So it was probably 1995 or six.
The age of Mixed tapes.
Got it.
The age of mixed tapes.
Like, I don't even know it, it'ssuch the mix tape that a
12-year-old would make.
(36:26):
There are Kelly and bare nakedladies are back to back on it
and it's covered in likeglittery nail polish.
And, and I love it and I, Ithink I mailed it to, I'm pretty
sure that I had mailed it to himwhen he was doing study abroad
in college.
I was 12 and he was like 20.
(36:48):
And this 20 year old guy doing afull year of study abroad.
kept this mixtape from hislittle sister that's not good.
I was not like a mixtapeprodigy.
Like it's not a very goodmixtape and carried it around
with him on study abroad,brought it home, kept it through
however many moves, multipledeployments.
(37:10):
And you know, when I was goingthrough his stuff, there, there
it is.
And I think that that's like, soemblematic of who he was as a
person.
And as a brother, you know, he,he, Genuinely loved everything I
did, and I was special in hiseyes.
And and I think it, it justspeaks a lot to the beauty of
(37:31):
the relationship that we had assiblings.
Mandy (37:35):
And what a perfect thing, because in your book you, you
mention music a lot and youinclude lyrics a lot.
And so that totally fits withlike what I know about you just
from reading the book.
And I'm curious, did you putthat playlist, like, into the
current century and, download itand have a playlist on your
phone where you can listen tothat specific playlist, or?
(37:56):
Oh, this
Annie (37:57):
one I made?
So I started making a playlistout of it.
But I, I put songs on here,like, I don't know the name with
an asterisk, and then downbelow, the asterisk says, I I
really don't know the name.
So there's one song, one thatjust says love.
(38:20):
Like, I definitely didn't getthe right song titles, because
they're probably recorded offthe radio.
So I did try to make like adigital version of this.
And I think what I need is toactually just find a cassette
player and figure out what thesongs are.
But I really want to becauseit's a weird, weird bunch of
songs.
(38:41):
And I think it would be reallyentertaining.
So one of these days, maybe Ican get a Walkman off of eBay or
something.
Figure out what's actually onhere.
Mandy (38:51):
Maybe for one of the anniversaries, that sounds like
a really fun project.
And then you can like share theplaylist with people.
Annie (38:58):
Well, all right, now I'm going to go on eBay
Mandy (39:00):
and find a Walkman.
Oh, I love that.
Well, thank you so much forsharing.
Your story and them story andalso just really creating this
resource for people that I knowis so needed out there and you
know something I wish that I hadhad access to Six years ago when
my brother died and I just knowit's gonna help so many people
(39:22):
and it's gonna be one of thosebooks That everyone recommends
when someone loses a siblingwhich is Horrific and an awful
thing that we need such aresource, but it's going to keep
happening and having somethingso well rounded, I think is
important because many, a lot ofthe books that are out there.
I do feel like are more focusedon like this specific kind of
(39:43):
loss, which can't as easily beextracted to the variety of
experiences.
And I, I, I found that you did areally great job incorporating
all of that.
So
Annie (39:52):
thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
This has been such a wonderfulconversation and I really
appreciate it getting to talkabout it.
Mandy (40:00):
I hope you enjoyed hearing from Annie as much as I
enjoyed talking to her.
To hear not only about Ben, butabout sibling loss as a whole.
Her book is a phenomenalresource and can bring you or
anyone who's lost a sibling somemuch needed validation in that
experience.
You can find a link to her bookin our show notes or wherever
(40:21):
books are sold.
As mentioned earlier, we'regoing to be taking a break now
between seasons and we lookforward to coming back this fall
with more amazing interviewslike the one today with Annie.
I hope you're gentle withyourself if you're grieving this
summer and know that you areseen regardless of the type of
loss you are facing.
Thank you so much for listening.
(40:42):
Please make sure you subscribe,share this episode with anyone
who could benefit from it.
And as always, visitRememberGrams anytime you need
to send a little love to someonewho is grieving.
Stay tuned for our updatedwebsite.
Thank you so much, and have awonderful day and summer ahead.
Hello and welcome back to the Grief Trails podcast.
I'm your host Amanda Kernaghanfrom Remembergrams, a small
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S.
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(00:21):
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(00:42):
com and thank you in advance foryour patience and continued
support.
Today is the last episode ofseason two, and we are ending on
an incredibly high note with ourguest today, Annie Orenstein.
Annie is the author of the book,Always a Sibling, The Forgotten
Mourner's Guide to Grief.
(01:03):
She's also a researcher, andshe's here to talk to us about
losing her big brother, Ben, andeverything she learned from
interviewing other grievingsiblings.
We had such a genuine connectionas two sisters who've walked
this specific path of grief, andI truly hope that you enjoy
listening in to the interview..
Okay, so, I am thrilled to talkto you.
(01:25):
I just finished your book, and Ihave a million place markers in
it.
As a sister who has lost abrother you know, I've been
through sibling loss, and it isso unique, and I've also lost my
mom, and so I feel like I havethis comparison, and When I lost
my mom, there's thisfoundational book out there for
(01:45):
women who've lost their momscalled Motherless Daughters, and
I've looked at that as sort of atouchstone book.
And I wasn't able to findanything like that for sibling
loss, and it isn't until I sawyour book that I feel like you
I've really taken that place onthe bookshelf where it can be
this resource for siblings.
But before we get all ahead ofourselves and talk about your
(02:06):
book, I first wanted to ask youto tell us about Ben.
Tell me about who Ben was to youas a brother, what your
relationship was like, and yeah,just fill us in.
Annie (02:18):
Absolutely.
I mean, first of all, thank youfor having me.
Thank you for reading the book.
I'm sure we'll get into itlater, but kind of everything
you said of, of where that bookcould live has been kind of my
dream.
So thank you.
So I'm the youngest and theyoungest of three and the little
sister, and that was very much acore part of my identity being
(02:41):
the little sister the two olderbrothers.
One four years older than me andone eight years older than me.
My mom said that she loved kindof having babies.
And so when someone was pottytrained and out of diapers, she
would have another one.
So we're all, four years apart,very evenly spaced.
And you know, I think reallysince my very first memory, they
(03:03):
were my idols.
You know, I, I looked up to themin every, every possible way.
And Ben was the oldest and hereally, you know, there are a
lot of kind of stereotypes aboutbirth order and all of that.
And, you know, he really was theringleader.
He was the responsible one.
(03:25):
And he was the one who was kindof left in charge of us, I
think, in a lot of ways,emotionally sometimes and
physically other times.
You know, but I really he was hewas everything, you know, and I
think in hindsight and nowknowing what I know and learning
everything I have through theresearch of the book, I think,
(03:45):
what I realized is that he was avery kind of strong attachment
figure for me, a very, you know,strong and healthy, very healthy
attachment figure for me.
And and as I, grew up, it feltlike we only got closer with an
eight year age difference, youknow.
(04:05):
When he graduated high school, Iwas only 10 years old.
We didn't have a ton in common,but by the time I was in high
school and college we werereally kind of relating to each
other a lot more as equals.
And that was, Just the highlightof my life, you know, the fact
that that now these big brothersgot to be my friends and and
(04:25):
people I hung out with likepeers just blew my mind and was
at every time we would kind ofhang out without our parents
around like adults.
It was like.
The best night of my life, youknow, and they were my best
friends and closest confidantsand in many ways, and I think,
(04:47):
you know, a lot of people withmultiple siblings have this, but
like they played very differentroles for me.
And I talk about this in thebook where Sam, my middle
brother, you know, something waswrong.
Sam was the one I would call ifI wanted to be distracted, if I
wanted to forget about it, to,you know, be kind of whisked
away.
And Ben was the one to call if Iwanted.
Really work it out, you know,and really talk through it and
(05:10):
and that's a really scary personto lose.
Mandy (05:13):
Yeah.
Annie (05:14):
And he He was in the reserves, the Army reserves, and
he was deployed for the firsttime in 2006 to the Horn of
Africa.
And he was then called up on aStop-loss order in 2009 and
deployed to Afghanistan.
And almost exactly three monthsinto his deployment, he was
(05:39):
killed by a suicide bomber whileon foot patrol.
They were going, they thoughtthey were going to meet the
leader of a local village and itwas, you know, it seems a trap.
And I was 25 in grad school andmy world just crumbled.
To live.
(06:00):
You know, such a strongattachment figure and someone,
the person who kind of knows youbetter than you know you and who
had that, place coupled withbeing 25 years old and all of
these things, it it was not apretty time.
It was, it was very dark.
(06:20):
And and I write about that a lotin the book, as you mentioned,
but I think I was.
Just completely lost.
I didn't know what to do or howto, how to exist in this world.
I, I had never existed in aworld without him in it.
And I didn't know how to dothat.
Mandy (06:41):
I mean, there's so much I could ask about the different
pieces that you've mentioned,but you bring up in the book
that more people have siblingsthan fathers.
in their lives, which was mindblowing to me.
And, but also the fact that wespend so much of our time with
our siblings, like it's adifferent relationship than we
(07:02):
have with anyone else, becausethey're there through all of
these different developmentalstages.
They're usually right alongsideyou for a lot of things
happening in the house.
And then, you know, Like youmentioned, you transition once
you become an adult and you sortof morph your relationship with
your sibling, whether it wascontentious as children or not
oftentimes that relationshipchanges in ways and, and you
(07:25):
sound like you had such a closerelationship with them and all
of that combined, I think itgoes to the difficulty that
comes when, when we losesomebody like that in our lives.
But then adding in the fact thatit was a sudden loss and
unexpected, despite him being inthe military, I think some
people will say, well, you know,you always know that that's,
(07:46):
that's a risk that comes withthe territory, but knowing that
something's a risk and actuallyhaving something happen is
completely different.
Annie (07:55):
And it's interesting you say that because I was convinced
that he was going to be killed.
I was sure of it.
I, you know, Would tell anyonewho would listen.
I tried to convince him to stayhome.
And so as convinced as I was,then it happened.
(08:15):
And I was like, no, no, nope.
This is not, this is not whatwas supposed to happen.
This is not the plan.
And, and for the book, Iinterviewed a lot of, of,
surviving siblings, and I wasreally interested to hear from
folks who who experienced, youknow, their sibling succumbed to
a prolonged illness where theyvery much knew it was coming,
(08:38):
were told they were coming.
And even those siblings who hadbeen preparing themselves, some
cases for years, Would tell methat that when it happened, they
were shocked and then they wereshocked by the fact that they
were shocked, you know But butall of these situations same
with you know People whostruggled with addiction and
(08:59):
mental health issues who hadattempted to take their own
lives in the past siblings werestill surprised when it happened
and I I still can't totally wrapmy I guess I can't I Both can
and can't understand it But Ithink it's just that there's
nothing, there's no way toprepare yourself for a set of
(09:22):
powerful emotions that you havenever felt before.
And so you can reason it, andyou can try to imagine what it
would be like, but you have noreference point.
So you can't actually, you canlull yourself into this false
sense of security, and thinkthat you know it, but it's like
having a child.
You can't imagine it until youexperience it.
(09:45):
You know, those hormones arerushing through your body and,
and then you're like, Oh, I hadno idea, you know?
And, and I think in a lot ofways, grief is very similar.
Mandy (09:55):
Yeah, and you say beforehand you can reason
through it, but when it happens,it's like that reason, that part
of your brain shuts off.
You have no ability to reasonthrough anything and, you know,
your brain's trying to protectyou.
And so it's telling you, no, ofcourse this didn't really
happen.
And like I saw in your book andyou say like, well, how do I
know it was really him?
(10:16):
How do I know he's not just lostout there and the army messed up
and they're misidentifying him?
And our brains can and convinceus of things like that.
And it's fascinating.
And I think it's not just you.
I think that's an importantpoint to make is people think,
wow, like I really was losing mymind not being willing to
(10:36):
believe what was so clearly afact in front of me.
But that's a very commonfeeling.
And that's one of the things Ilove about your book, is that
you kind of go through thesethings that not everyone
realizes is such a commonexperience in grief and bring it
to light.
And you also show how it can beapplied to multiple different
types of losses.
So not just sudden loss, butalso prolonged loss and loss
(11:00):
related to mental illness andaddiction and all of those
things.
That's incredibly helpful.
Annie (11:05):
During the interviews, There would always be a moment
where someone, once someone wascomfortable, where they would
say, you know, I don't know ifyou've heard this from anyone
else, but, or this is probably areally weird thing to say, but,
or, you know, kind ofembarrassed to admit this, but,
(11:26):
and whatever came after the butwas something that I had already
heard from someone else.
And.
And so in my head as aresearcher, I'm like, Oh, we
have a pattern here, right?
This is more than one datapoint.
Maybe there's something here todig into from a very analytical
perspective.
But what I quickly realized waswhen I would tell the person,
(11:48):
no, you're actually not thefirst one who told me that I,
you know, I've heard that fromother people, you could see the
relief in their body.
And, and they would kind of, Youknow, their eyes would get wide
and they would want to knowmore.
They would become more curiousabout their own grief and their
own experience by hearing aboutother people's.
(12:11):
And that kind of reflectingduring these sessions, I could
see how powerful it was.
And so very quickly, I realized,okay, any of these things that
someone, you know, qualifies asthinking is weird.
I have to be sure I talk aboutthis in the book because They
(12:31):
have no idea how common it is,and it seems that knowing how
common it is helps.
And so I, I kind of would alwaysnote those things in my notes,
and be like, someone thinks thisis weird, dig into it, and write
about it.
Mandy (12:49):
Yeah, I mean, you really went deep into things that I
think are hard to talk about.
And one of those things comesdown to parents, and you know, a
parent has lost their child, andthat is a big deal.
And yet you are also their childand you've had your own loss and
like how you navigate thatrelationship with your parents
and what that looks like in eachfamily and how different it can
(13:10):
be, but also just the strain itcan put on those relationships
or the way it could delay yourown grief because you're trying
to be there for your parents asthey grieve their loss of their
child and you defer your ownneeds through that whole time.
I just found that whole sectionto be so honest because it's.
That happens all the time, butit's not talked about.
Annie (13:35):
Yeah, and I think that chapter was really difficult to
write, because I kept imaginingmy parents reading it.
Yeah.
And, you know, wondering whatthey were going to take away
from it.
And I heard some reallyhorrific, upsetting stories of
how parents treated theirsurviving children.
And I also heard a lot ofstories of parents Who were
(13:57):
doing their best, and sometimestheir best was like really good,
and sometimes their best waspretty terrible, but they were
trying, and I think one thing Iwrestled with in that section is
I think when we talk about thesesituations where it seems like
there's no good, solution.
(14:18):
We try to force a solution,right?
Like, well, but even though it'snot perfect, this is the way to
do it.
And I think what I was trying toconvey in that chapter is like,
you know, it's just a badsituation.
Your parents can't be there foryou like they would have
otherwise because they'regrieving and you can't put your
(14:38):
grief aside to only focus onthem because you're grieving
too, and you have lost a pieceof your parent.
And.
You're right that nothing willbe the same.
Period.
Right?
There's no, you want to be like,but here's what you can do to
somehow make it better.
And the truth is you kind ofcan't.
(14:58):
The best thing you can do isunderstand, give each other
grace and, you know, give eachother the opportunities to find
someone who can support you and,you know, be there for each
other.
But there's no like magicalsolution except to just kind of
be there.
Acknowledge that everyone isliving in an imperfect situation
(15:24):
and an imperfect world andThat's the reality of
Mandy (15:27):
it.
It reminds me of how you endyour book.
It's like, well, I can't tiethis up in a bow for you.
Like, I can't make this better.
And even though the book isover, it doesn't mean that,
like, your grief is over, andthat your sibling is back, and
the world is better, and it'sthe same kind of thing.
Like, you're in a difficultsituation, and there are no
right answers.
There is no instruction manual.
(15:48):
I think your book comes reallyclose to being not an
instruction manual, but just acomfort in acknowledging.
The different aspects that cancome up and that there is no
right or wrong response and, andyou also go into different types
of grief that people experience,which not everyone knows about
all the different types ofgriefs that are out there.
(16:09):
And I, I think that can bereally helpful for people as
well.
Annie (16:12):
Yeah, I certainly didn't know about them until I started
reading the book.
I knew about complicated griefbecause my therapist had talked
to me about it.
And I knew about traumatic griefbecause my mother had called me,
probably, Nine years, eight,nine years after my brother died
(16:33):
and in a whisper, has anytherapist ever told you about
traumatic grief?
And I was like, no, what are youtalking about?
She was like, someone just toldme about this.
And it was like, How had no onetold about this, right?
Like we had even gone totherapy, like we were trying
(16:55):
And, and I think there is justso much power in having the
knowledge and understanding, youknow, again, okay, I'm not
crazy.
This is enough of a thing thatit even has a name.
And, knowing, oh, I do thisweird thing and my grief is
often the type of grief you'reexperiencing.
(17:15):
And so, knowing, just havingthat information, I think, kind
of empowers you to examine it alittle bit more.
And, and send a little bit morecuriosity there and figure out
if there's another way to do it.
And so I think that's a lot of,Why I was trying to give all of
this information is like you canpick out the pieces that
(17:39):
resonate with you and try toexamine them a bit more.
Mandy (17:43):
So how long after your brother's death did you realize
that you were going to write abook?
Annie (17:49):
About nine, nine and a half years after he died, I knew
I wanted to do some kind ofproject.
I wanted to do something aheadof the 10 year anniversary.
And I was a researcher and Iknew I could do interviews and
so I thought what I wanted to dowas interview his friends and
(18:12):
family and capture all of thestories about him that I didn't
know before people reallystarted to forget.
And the first person I talked toabout it was my brother Sam.
And he was like, I think this isa great idea.
Sounds like a podcast.
And I was like, it does soundlike a podcast.
(18:32):
I have no idea how to do it.
And it never, it was like, itsounded like a podcast, but it
podcast didn't feel right.
And I was like, maybe it'll be abook.
I didn't know what it was goingto be or if it was going to be
anything more than transcriptsof interviews that I could give
my children and my nieces andnephews so that they could learn
about their uncle.
(18:54):
And then, and then at somepoint, I realized I wanted, it
would be written, but I stillthought it would be written, and
it would be more of a storyabout Ben.
Mandy (19:06):
Yeah, that's what I'm curious about.
How did you go from, like, why,what made you veer from Menmar
to what you ended up doing,which was more incorporating
your own story, but alsoincluding other people's
stories, other people'sperspectives, and research all
in one package.
Annie (19:24):
So I got a, I had this proposal and the book was about
Ben written like an oralhistory, and I got an agent, and
she said, and I had at thatpoint published an essay in
time, and she said, really likeyour writing, I loved your piece
in time.
But you're not in this book andwould you be willing to put
(19:47):
yourself in the book and youknow, write it more in the style
of this essay?
And I said, yes.
So then I came up with anotherversion of the proposal, which
was kind of two timelines and itwas Ben Kepp journals for years,
you know, we had probablydecades worth of journals.
And so I thought, His timeline,which would be kind of the last
(20:12):
year of his life and hisdeployment could be written
through journal entries andletters and interviews.
And mine would be about thefirst few years after the death.
And when we eventually took thatout to publishers they weren't
that into that version, but alot of them came back and said,
we do see your argument thatthere aren't any sibling loss
(20:35):
books.
And if you'd be interested inwriting.
a book on sibling loss, you canbring it back.
And my first reaction was no,very adamant no.
I was like, you know, what am Igoing to write?
Like 10 ways to get over yourdead brother?
Like there's no way, you know,and I hadn't really found many
(20:57):
grief books that had helped meat that point.
And so I couldn't, I don't wantto write a book that I wouldn't
want to read.
And I couldn't really imagine agrief book.
like how I could write thatgrief book.
And then I started thinkingabout right after Ben died, when
I also tried to find a book, youknow, like was your experience.
(21:19):
I tried to find a book onSibling Loss and there was
nothing.
And I saw books on losingparents and, and friends and
children and pets, but nothingabout a sibling.
And I thought that meant that Iwasn't allowed to grieve or that
I shouldn't be grieving.
And so I started thinking moreand more, what if I wrote the
book 25 year old Annie waslooking for in the bookstore,
(21:43):
and I knew that my story wasvery unique.
Right?
Military loss, it has its ownunique piece.
The way you're treated by yourcommunity afterwards is very
different than most other typesof loss.
So I knew I couldn't write abroad, broadly encompassing,
helpful book from only myperspective.
Mandy (22:06):
Yeah.
Annie (22:06):
And so again, I was like, well, I'm a researcher.
I know how to interview people.
And I put together this newversion of the book, which is
what it is now, where it's Ben'sstory and my story were still in
there, but it was also full ofstories from surviving siblings
who had different types ofrelationships, different
(22:27):
experiences and loss and ingrief.
And I thought in that way, Icould write more broadly about
the experience because I coulduse their stories to supplement
my own and to understand it abit more.
And so that's how it.
Landed where it finally did.
Mandy (22:45):
That's incredible.
And then once you're collectingall of these interviews and
collecting all this information,I mean, that's in and of itself
a lot to distill down how muchof your own story do you put
into the book?
And how much do you put in ofother people's?
And where do you find thatbalance?
Because I think as humans, Wetend to want to tell our own
(23:08):
stories more, which is totallynatural, but I think you found a
really healthy balance of yourown experience, and then really
sprinkling in all these otherpeople's experiences, like, was
that, did that take multiplerevisions, or how did you find
that balance?
Annie (23:25):
It's funny, it was kind of the opposite for me because
in my professional work as aresearcher, I have to stay
completely unbiased and my storyhas no place in my finding.
So it actually was kind of theopposite experience where my
editor would be like, What wereyou you are not in this chapter,
like, where, you know, let'slet's hear more about you and
(23:48):
about Ben, and so it, especiallyin the beginning, it took a
little more encouragement for meto talk about my own story.
And then there are otherchapters where I think.
My story is a lot of it, likewhen I talk about things that
are very, that I experiencedvery deeply, I think there's
just more of me in thosechapters.
(24:08):
But it, it was kind of theopposite, where, where my
initial instinct was to telleverything fully through other
people's stories, and I had tokeep kind of reminding myself,
like, nope, I'm, I need to be inthis book too.
That's fascinating.
Mandy (24:23):
You mentioned Ben's journals.
I want to touch on that a littlebit.
A, I think journaling is not,you know, something everyone
does, right?
So if your sibling kept ajournal, I think that feels very
special and feels like you get apiece of them that you would not
have otherwise had.
I know that in your book, yousay you didn't read those
(24:46):
journals for a long time.
Like, which 10 years
Annie (24:50):
till I started doing interviews?
Mandy (24:51):
That is fascinating to me.
My brother was not a journalkeeper per se, like your brother
was, where he had multiplejournals.
He had one journal, and it waskept towards the end of his
life, or probably that last yearof his life.
And I read it before hisfuneral.
Like, I stayed up late at nighton the floor like, devouring and
(25:13):
sobbing.
I'm like And the whole time Ifelt nothing but guilt for
reading it, because I was like,these are not words for me.
Like, this information isn'tinformation for me.
And yet, I could not stopreading it.
And I read it cover to cover,and then I offered it to my
brother.
And I was like, look, he has ajournal, you should read the
(25:33):
journal.
He was like, I can't, it's notmy place.
And I was just like, ah, then Ifelt like a terrible person.
So Yeah.
Tell me, talk to me about that.
And like, how did you come toterms with like the fact that
you were reading his innerthoughts?
Annie (25:48):
So, yes, we had all these journals.
They were kind of sprinkledaround.
A lot of them were at my parentshouse.
But then he had put his stuff instorage.
So some of it was in storage.
And, you know, he had one or twojournals with him that didn't
get returned until.
A while after and they werethere, but I think again, like I
(26:13):
am the little sister through andthrough and I don't know what
exactly I thought would happen,but like I was so trained
because he had kept journalssince I was little.
I was so trained to never touchthose journals.
Like, I don't know if I thoughtI was going to get struck by
(26:33):
lightning or what exactly wouldhappen, but I just didn't even
think about it.
I was like, we don't read those.
It didn't, the option of readingit didn't cross my mind.
My, my family still hasn't readthem.
I think they're going to and I,Now have them and you have kind
(26:54):
of catalog them.
But it was really interestingbecause I had reached out to a
colleague of mine.
Whose sister Sandra bland diedunder suspicious circumstances
and police custody, and she hadalso kept.
Diary.
And they had read them like you,you know, shortly after.
(27:15):
And, and I asked her about itand she too could not believe
that I had not read them.
And she was like, if you'rewaiting for a sign, this is your
sign.
You have permission.
And then I just devoured youknow, I kind of collected them
all and would read them and thenrun and make my husband read
them.
And It was, I don't know, I, Iwish someone had encouraged me
(27:39):
to read them earlier, you know,I, I wish someone had told me it
was okay, I think I felt like Ineeded permission, but no one in
my family was touching them, soI wasn't going to get
permission, you know, not thatthey were telling me not to, but
they weren't going to tell me toread them, and and I felt like
that was ultimately what Ineeded was for someone to say
(27:59):
like, it's okay, you can readthis, and And now I treasure it.
Mandy (28:04):
Yeah, I think there's something that draws us to
things like the journal orthings like The stories that you
sought out from his friends and,and people who knew him in other
aspects of life where you didn'tknow him, because we know that
everything we know about oursibling Is now cut off like
(28:25):
there is no opportunity to getto know them on another level
anymore.
And so any way that we can likefill in those gaps for ourself
and feel like we're stillmeeting who they were as a whole
person rather than just abrother or sister.
I think that's really powerful,but I never thought about that.
Annie (28:45):
Kind of fills the void, right?
You know, it gives you more.
Nuggets.
More little pieces ofinformation and more pieces of
them.
They become more, more whole.
Yeah.
Which is so important whenthey're not there
Mandy (29:02):
anymore.
Yeah.
And I, I like that we had twovery different experiences with
that because I think it justgoes to show that like,
Everyone's going to handle itdifferently and you can make the
decision for yourself whetherthat's something that you want
to, you know, explore if yoursibling does have something like
that and you've been holdingback, you know, to think about
(29:23):
what you've said about feelinglike you needed permission, but
then finding that it was okayonce you did read them.
Annie (29:29):
Yeah.
And I do think there is a goodchance that I was not ready to
read them when he first died.
You know, it maybe is ultimatelyfor the best.
That it took me so long,obviously I'll never know, but I
do like to think that I readthem when I was ready to read
them and I'm grateful that theystill existed at that point.
Mandy (29:51):
Yeah, so when you started this project and you were mostly
interviewing people who knewBen, Well, I'm trying to
document like a life history, alife story of his what have you
chosen to do with with thatinformation, those interviews
that you did?
Are you just documenting thatfor your, your children, your
(30:12):
family?
Have you made it into anything?
Or that was just like raw copiesthat you're just keeping for
your family?
Or are you embarking on aseparate project for something
else?
Such a good question.
Annie (30:22):
No one, no one has asked me that.
Right now, they're just the rawcopies and the transcripts and,
I think of them as, you know, ifnothing else, then they are they
document a lot of Ben's life andI can share that with his nieces
and nephews.
And so that's kind of where theysit at the moment.
(30:46):
I do think about.
Making something else out ofthem.
But I don't think I know exactlywhat that is yet, and I find a
lot of comfort just knowing thatthey exist for now.
But yeah, I don't, I don't knowyet if they'll live beyond that.
Mandy (31:02):
Wow, I was very curious reading, so I'm glad that I got
to ask.
I love that you, you reallybring in a lot of humor to it,
too.
It's such a heavy, serioustopic.
We're talking about the death ofour siblings, which happens very
out of the natural order ofthings.
And You do a really brilliantjob of bringing in levity.
(31:23):
One of my favorite parts waswhen you were talking about,
like, telling your brain, like,okay, I'm going into this really
important meeting.
Hold it together for the nexthour.
Every time.
Your brain is like okay, I'mgonna immediately start crying.
Annie (31:39):
Brains like, hey, remember that time your brother
died?
Yes.
You're like, why now?
I think, like, I wrote, youknow, I worked full time, I have
kids, and I wrote a lot of thebook either very early in the
morning or on weekends, and soI, the first draft, especially,
(32:01):
you know, I had all my notes ofthe facts and the figures and
the interview quotes.
But then what, what links themtogether, at least in that first
draft, a lot of it was stream ofconsciousness, and I think I
would get to a point in writingit or reading it where, like, I
needed some comedic relief formyself, you know, that's my own
(32:21):
kind of, you know, Reaction ordefense mechanism is to just
like find a way to laugh.
And so I was putting all ofthese jokes in, I think just for
my own psyche.
Like I just needed the levityand the break.
And then when I would reread adraft.
Sometimes, you know, monthslater, because I wrote the whole
(32:43):
thing longhand first and thentranscribed it.
So it was like months betweenwhen I would first write
something and then read it.
And I'm like, I think that'sactually funny.
Like, I'm going to try keepingthis in for one more draft.
And obviously most of them didnot make it, but I think it was
just, it was what I needed to beable to get through the content.
(33:05):
And then I felt like, Maybeother people would also
appreciate these moments to takea breath.
Mandy (33:12):
Wow.
I'm still now totally hung up onthe fact that you just said you
wrote this longhand first.
I
Annie (33:17):
did.
I don't know if it was smart ornot, but I just love writing by
hand, and I get so distracted oncomputers, and I spend all day
looking at screens, and I justdon't like looking at screens.
Towards the end, there was kindof a time crunch, and I think
the last like three chapters.
I drafted on the computer.
But it felt really good to writeit out longhand.
(33:39):
It just took, it wasn't as fast.
Mandy (33:44):
Yeah, and longhand, you can feel like, wow, I wrote so
much.
And then if you put it in thecomputer, you're like, no, I
didn't.
Annie (33:52):
That felt great because I wouldn't transcribe it.
And I would transcribe every,like, Four or five chapters.
So they were big enough chunksthat yeah, if I wrote in the
mornings, I'd be like, I wasamazing.
I wrote eight pages, you know,and then you type it up and it
was much shorter.
But when you type up fivechapters at once, it, it wasn't
(34:13):
as shocking, but periodically Iwould get asked about my word
count and I was like, who knows?
Mandy (34:22):
Oh my gosh, I love hearing about everyone's process
because everyone is sodifferent.
I went to a writing conference.
It's totally not to do withsibling loss, but I went to a
writing conference and I didn'tknow if people were going to
bring laptops to the session orjust paper and notebook and pen.
And so I brought a notebook andpen.
I never write with that.
And so then there was a writingprompt and I was so lost because
(34:45):
it was just not the medium thatI write in.
And so then the next day, Ibrought my laptop because a
bunch of people had laptops andrealized that it was, like, my
process is much more on acomputer.
So I love to hear that everyoneis different in that way.
Okay.
Back to Ben and back to siblingsI'm going to wrap this up, but I
wondered if you, one of thethings I liked in the book is
(35:07):
that you said during yourinterviews, you would write down
the person's sibling's name on apiece of paper in front of you
so that you didn't forget whattheir name was, but also just as
a way of honoring that personstill and recognizing that like
by us talking about them, by ussaying their name, we're keeping
them here with us or in this.
(35:28):
This realm in some way and I, Ithink that's really beautiful
and I try to do the same thing.
And so I just wanted to end withsome little fun tidbit or memory
or something of them that youkeep with you.
Annie (35:42):
Sorry to put you on the spot.
No, no, it's such a goodquestion.
And actually I have some stuffright behind me.
I know no one can see me, butjust to, to think of my own
memory invent something that Benhad saved.
A mix tape that I had made himlike a cassette tape that, let's
(36:05):
see, I write on the cover thatmy bat mitzvah is coming up.
So it was probably 1995 or six.
The age of Mixed tapes.
Got it.
The age of mixed tapes.
Like, I don't even know it, it'ssuch the mix tape that a
12-year-old would make.
(36:26):
There are Kelly and bare nakedladies are back to back on it
and it's covered in likeglittery nail polish.
And, and I love it and I, Ithink I mailed it to, I'm pretty
sure that I had mailed it to himwhen he was doing study abroad
in college.
I was 12 and he was like 20.
(36:48):
And this 20 year old guy doing afull year of study abroad.
kept this mixtape from hislittle sister that's not good.
I was not like a mixtapeprodigy.
Like it's not a very goodmixtape and carried it around
with him on study abroad,brought it home, kept it through
however many moves, multipledeployments.
(37:10):
And you know, when I was goingthrough his stuff, there, there
it is.
And I think that that's like, soemblematic of who he was as a
person.
And as a brother, you know, he,he, Genuinely loved everything I
did, and I was special in hiseyes.
And and I think it, it justspeaks a lot to the beauty of
(37:31):
the relationship that we had assiblings.
Mandy (37:35):
And what a perfect thing, because in your book you, you
mention music a lot and youinclude lyrics a lot.
And so that totally fits withlike what I know about you just
from reading the book.
And I'm curious, did you putthat playlist, like, into the
current century and, download itand have a playlist on your
phone where you can listen tothat specific playlist, or?
(37:56):
Oh, this
Annie (37:57):
one I made?
So I started making a playlistout of it.
But I, I put songs on here,like, I don't know the name with
an asterisk, and then downbelow, the asterisk says, I I
really don't know the name.
So there's one song, one thatjust says love.
(38:20):
Like, I definitely didn't getthe right song titles, because
they're probably recorded offthe radio.
So I did try to make like adigital version of this.
And I think what I need is toactually just find a cassette
player and figure out what thesongs are.
But I really want to becauseit's a weird, weird bunch of
songs.
(38:41):
And I think it would be reallyentertaining.
So one of these days, maybe Ican get a Walkman off of eBay or
something.
Figure out what's actually onhere.
Mandy (38:51):
Maybe for one of the anniversaries, that sounds like
a really fun project.
And then you can like share theplaylist with people.
Annie (38:58):
Well, all right, now I'm going to go on eBay
Mandy (39:00):
and find a Walkman.
Oh, I love that.
Well, thank you so much forsharing.
Your story and them story andalso just really creating this
resource for people that I knowis so needed out there and you
know something I wish that I hadhad access to Six years ago when
my brother died and I just knowit's gonna help so many people
(39:22):
and it's gonna be one of thosebooks That everyone recommends
when someone loses a siblingwhich is Horrific and an awful
thing that we need such aresource, but it's going to keep
happening and having somethingso well rounded, I think is
important because many, a lot ofthe books that are out there.
I do feel like are more focusedon like this specific kind of
(39:43):
loss, which can't as easily beextracted to the variety of
experiences.
And I, I, I found that you did areally great job incorporating
all of that.
So
Annie (39:52):
thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
This has been such a wonderfulconversation and I really
appreciate it getting to talkabout it.
Mandy (40:00):
I hope you enjoyed hearing from Annie as much as I
enjoyed talking to her.
To hear not only about Ben, butabout sibling loss as a whole.
Her book is a phenomenalresource and can bring you or
anyone who's lost a sibling somemuch needed validation in that
experience.
You can find a link to her bookin our show notes or wherever
(40:21):
books are sold.
As mentioned earlier, we'regoing to be taking a break now
between seasons and we lookforward to coming back this fall
with more amazing interviewslike the one today with Annie.
I hope you're gentle withyourself if you're grieving this
summer and know that you areseen regardless of the type of
loss you are facing.
Thank you so much for listening.
(40:42):
Please make sure you subscribe,share this episode with anyone
who could benefit from it.
And as always, visitRememberGrams anytime you need
to send a little love to someonewho is grieving.
Stay tuned for our updatedwebsite.
Thank you so much, and have awonderful day and summer ahead.
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