Always a Sibling

April 1, 2024
A guidebook for navigating loss. Qualitative researcher and oral historian Orenstein makes her book debut with a heartfelt guide for grieving siblings, which she calls a "Mourner's User Manual." In 2009, when her older brother, Ben, was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan, the author felt like she was "treading water in a toxic ocean." From academic studies, grief texts, and nearly 40 in-depth interviews, she has learned that her feelings are widely shared by others who, in the aftermath of a sibling's death, need a life jacket, lighthouse, and rescue boat. Her interviewees told her wrenching stories about deaths caused by addiction, mental illness, homicide, suicide, accidents, and disease. They also revealed different manifestations of grief, including anticipatory grief, which begins before the actual loss; grief that is prolonged, chronic, or delayed; cumulative grief; and masked grief. She examines the complicated symptoms of traumatic grief, such as heart palpitations, memory loss, and an overwhelming sense of fear and dread, which she experienced personally. Siblings suffer a double loss after the death of a brother or sister: the inability of their grieving parents to fully care for the surviving children. As one woman told Orenstein, her parents weren't emotionally present for years. Guilt is often part of grieving, sometimes intensifying after experiences of happiness. "I resisted joy," Orenstein admits, "because it terrified me. It was a reminder of how feeling everything is." Throughout the book, the author offers charts comparing what well-meaning people say to mourners with how mourners hear those remarks: "They're in a better place," for example, is heard as "Better than being here with you"--not nearly the consolation it means to convey. Orenstein ends the manual with a series of exercises, many in the form of writing or thinking prompts. A text of compassionate guidance born from experience.

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April 8, 2024
Cultural researcher Orenstein debuts with a scattershot guide for those grieving the loss of a brother or sister. After her brother was killed while serving in Afghanistan in 2009, the author was left emotionally devastated and oddly adrift—“in grief one becomes a widow, not a wife; an orphan, not a daughter; but there is no name for us.” She yearned to “fall asleep and learn it was all a dream” before slowly learning to become an “active participant” in her healing process. Interweaving her personal experiences with anecdotes from interviews she conducted with others who’ve lost siblings, Orenstein provides tools for navigating a “strange new life” without one’s brother or sister while honoring their legacy. In particular, she centers a method of “narrative reconstruction” in which one tells—or writes—stories about their sibling to “make meaning” in the wake of the loss. Unfortunately, the useful advice is undermined by distracting tonal inconsistencies (Orenstein awkwardly mixes goofy humor, deep emotion, and out-of-place direct addresses—“Promise me you will at least try to feel the happy, Dear Reader”), opaque research methods (she draws on a survey completed by 350 participants and 40 interviews without providing information on the selection process or demographics), and abrupt shifts between interviewee anecdotes and her own recollections. Despite a strong premise and Orenstein’s good intentions, this stumbles.