ABSTRACT
The death of a brother or sister is an overwhelming tragedy which will profoundly affect the whole family. Yet it is a loss that often remains unknown or ‘forgotten’, lying unconsciously in the depths of the sibling matrix like an unacknowledged wound deeply affecting, even haunting a family for generations. Attention is focused on the parents who have lost their child; the siblings who have lost a beloved brother or sister get overlooked. Like Gillian, surviving siblings often feel burdened with unreachable expectations. They will never be as good, as loved, as successful, or as clever as the sibling who has died – the one who preoccupying their parents’ minds. A sibling death can cause deep silence. Families can literally shut down, everyone locked in their own pain. The remaining child interprets the parents’ unwillingness to talk about the dead sibling as an unspeakably angry accusation that, somehow, he or she was at fault.
