When a child has died, siblings are often referred to as “the forgotten mourners.” While parents usually receive much support, siblings usually receive little—often being asked “How are your parents doing?” The Compassionate Friends is an organization that is not just for bereaved parents. It’s also for bereaved siblings (and grandparents). Some chapters have sibling subgroups while many welcome adult siblings to their meetings. Contact your local chapter to find out their policies on siblings and their meetings. Here on The Compassionate Friends national website, you will find support in a number of different ways.
1) Online Support Community (live chats) allows you to talk with other bereaved siblings from across the country during the Online Support Community sessions held every week. These sessions are limited in number of participants and have trained monitors who are also siblings.
2) Recommended sibling materials are offered through TCF Exclusives.
3) Two brochures made specifically for bereaved siblings:
When a Brother or Sister Dies
Adults Grieving the Death of a Sibling
4) All TCF National Conferences and many regional conferences offer workshops and other activities specifically geared for bereaved siblings.
TCF National Conference
TCF Regional Conferences
5) We Need Not Walk Alone, the national magazine of The Compassionate Friends includes stories for siblings as well as the popular sibling column “Ask Dr. Paulson.”
6) TCF chapters that provide sibling support (use chapter locator)
Siblings Walking Together
(Formerly the Sibling Credo)
We are the surviving siblings of The Compassionate Friends.
We are brought together by the deaths of our brothers and sisters.
Open your hearts to us, but have patience with us.
Sometimes we will need the support of our friends.
At other times we need our families to be there.
Sometimes we must walk alone, taking our memories with us,
continuing to become the individuals we want to be.
We cannot be our dead brother or sister;
however, a special part of them lives on with us.
When our brothers and sisters died, our lives changed.
We are living a life very different from what we envisioned,
and we feel the responsibility to be strong even when we feel weak.
Yet we can go on because we understand better than many others
the value of family and the precious gift of life.
Our goal is not to be the forgotten mourners that we sometimes are,
but to walk together to face our tomorrows as surviving siblings of
The Compassionate Friends.
©The Compassionate Friends