SIBBS Newsletter Summer 2022

SIBBS Newsletter, Summer 2022 | www.tcf.org.uk 13 Overall, the passing of time acts as a consistent reminder of loss, including what was and what will never be. It also offers people the ability and opportunity to reflect on their life and realise the significance of their sibling’s death in a way that may not have been obvious at the time. For example, participants indicated that they had experienced a series of ‘secondary’ losses beyond the death of the sibling that they also had to deal with, such as the potential inability to become an aunty/uncle, sister or brother in law. Several participants also identified the death of their sibling as a moment in time which started a chain of events that would not otherwise have occurred. In this sense, their sibling’s death had initiated a ripple effect through time, informing a series of moments that followed the death and brought them to the point in life which they currently occupied. For example, some participants talked about how their family had become far closer or more distant, whilst others discussed significant personal hardship that followed the death of their sibling. In this sense, the death of their sibling had been a pivotal and defining moment that forever changed the course of their life.