Music: 0:02

If tomorrow starts without. There's something you should know. Will that hold you close? Never let you go.

Angela M. Dean, PsyD, FT: 0:12

Hello, and welcome to the Broken Pack, a podcast focused on giving sibling loss survivors a platform to share their stories and to be heard. Something that many sibling loss survivors state that they never have had. Sibling loss is misunderstood. The broken Pack exists to change that and to support survivors. I'm your host, Dr. Angela. Dean, the broken pack is back. In this episode, I'm sharing where I've been, what grief has taught me during the silence and the exciting changes ahead for this community and this podcast. Take a listen ' Music: cause you never know. You just never know. Hello everyone. It's Dr. Angela Dean, or just simply Angela or Tony's little sister. If you're listening to this, you may have noticed it's been a while, more than 18 months actually, since I released the last episode, and I wanted to take some time today to talk with you about where I've been, what's been happening, and what's coming next, because there's a lot coming next. But first I want to say thank you. Thank you so much to all of you who reached out during that silence, and thank you to those who sent me messages asking if I was okay. I am grateful to those of you who kept following along even when there was nothing new to follow. I saw you. I felt your concern, and it mattered way more than you know, so you might be wondering. What happened? The honest answer is that grief happened, which I know sounds almost absurd coming from someone who hosts a grief podcast who works as a psychologist and a tologist specializing in grief and loss from someone who has spent the last several years building an organization around supporting grieving siblings. But in reality, that's part of what I wanna talk about today. The way grief doesn't care about your credentials or where you are in your life. It doesn't care about how much you know about it. It shows up when it shows up like an unwelcome guest. My brother Tony, died on February 22nd, 2020, and in the fall of 2024, as I was six to eight months from approaching the fifth anniversary of his death, something really, really shifted. I'd been showing up consistently posting content, recording episodes, building this community, hosting events, expanding my day work to include more grief work. But somewhere in that fall, right as I approached that fifth year, I found myself unable to keep going at that pace. I felt stuck, overwhelmed, and the daily engagement with the grief contact that had once felt so purposeful, gave me meaning. It just all started to feel like way, way too much. The paradox, the really strange paradox actually I was living was that simultaneously. I was avoiding grief in my personal life while actively pursuing advanced training in grief therapy, avoidant coping, you might say. I was studying with Dr. Robert Nemeyer at the Portland Institute for Loss in transition. I was learning about meeting reconstruction and narrative approaches to grief therapy from him and. All of his faculty, I was learning how we make sense of loss by rewriting the stories of our lives. And I was working diligently on teaching grief courses to the next generation of mental health counselors doing research, presenting at conferences, and I was seeing clients helping them navigate their loss stories. For death, non death loss, sibling loss, and yet I couldn't find my way back into the next chapter of my own story or the story with the Bergham pack. I think sometimes we need to take a step back from talking about grief or all of the things in order to actually live it, to let it move through us without narrow rating it in real time. There were other things happening too, and I won't go into some of the details because some of the stories aren't mine to tell and some I'm really actually just trying to make sense of myself, but I can share some of it. My adult child moved literally across the globe, and while it's. Been a beautiful thing to watch, watching my kid build their own life. It's also a kind of loss. It's a non death loss, but real nonetheless, as I learn to parent differently and to simultaneously miss having them in my own home and my own time zone, and yet I have loved watching them thrive, grow, live, and become the amazing human that they are. I've navigated some significant shifts in Fi, family dynamics. I reconnected with family members from whom I've been estranged and chose to estr myself from others. It was an act of healthy boundary setting. Some of that's related to losing my brother and some of it's not. And together these processes brought their own complexity. They brought tenderness and grief of sorts, and I've been sitting with a fear that I think many surviving siblings know intimately. And we've talked about on this podcast. My parents are aging and I, I'm their only living child. Tony isn't here to share the weight of what's coming, whatever care they need, whatever decisions have to be made by an adult child that's. Mind to carry alone and, and that reality has been pressing on me in new ways. It felt incredibly heavy and isolating to carry all of this while facing the fifth anniversary of his death. So what changed? How did I find my way back here? Part of it was attending. A grief learning retreat through the Portland Institute. Being in a room with other people who work in this field, who understand laws both professionally and personally, that mattered and that helped. It reminded me why I started this work, this podcast, this organization. It helped me reconnect with my purpose. I want to share something a little more personal because I know many of my listeners have been on their own journeys with continuing bonds and signs from the siblings they've lost, and other people you've lost. And if you've listened, you know that I've been skeptical about mediums and signs. More so the mediums than the signs. It's not where my brain goes naturally, but during this time, after recording an episode with other Karin McLean about her book and her experiences with her signs from her brother, I started to pay attention differently. I started asking, and Tony showed up. In ways I can't fully explain. Wolves kept appearing, which if you know anything about the broken pack, you know why that matters. Very specific Pittsburgh related signs and signs from our childhood that only Tony would've known about, that couldn't be a coincidence. For example, some patients would mention wolves. Or packs or packs of wolves in sessions completely unprompted and without knowing what I do on the side, and there was a moment when I just knew someone I loved was going to be okay. I can't explain it better than that without revealing a story details that aren't mine to share. I'm not. Sure what I believe about all of it still, but I'm more open now and I think that openness is part of what brought me back in the meaning reconstruction approach to grief therapy. We talk about how loss disrupts our life's narrative. The story we thought we were living gets interrupted. And part of the work of grief is figuring out how to write the next chapter, not by erasing what's happened. Of course, if we could, we would. And not by moving on. But by integrating the loss into a story that still has meaning and purpose, and maybe it's a new meaning and purpose, and I've been living that, and these 18 months weren't a failure. They weren't a setback. I know I was absent, but they were part of my grief, part of my process, and I needed to step away from narrating to actually live it. To reflect, to grow, to reconnect with why this work matters to me, and what I kept coming back to and have come back to is this, from the time that I was a little girl growing up in a store with my brother, I've always wanted to make a difference in people's lives through curiosity, through showing up for others, through helping people see the beauty and connection that's still possible even after loss because I really believe that with great loss comes the possibility of great love. They're not separate, they're woven together. So now I'm ready to rate this next chapter, and I have some big things planned, which may have you asking what's coming up first. The podcast is back. We've actually been recording for months, and in some cases I recorded some in 2024 that'll come out too. And I have an incredible lineup of episodes ready for you. Second, this is significant. We're expanding. The broken pack has been focused on adult sibling loss, people who lost siblings in adulthood. But what I've come to realize and really believe is that sibling loss is sibling loss. Whether you lost your brother or sister before you were born, whether you. Five or 50 or 60 or a hundred. The loss is lifelong. We need to support one another across that whole spectrum. So going forward, the broken pack is open to all who have survived sibling loss, including those who lost siblings in childhood, or B four third. We're building community in new ways. Wild grief. Our newsletter is going to be moving from an email only format to substack, and details on that will be coming soon. We're also starting a book club on Substack as well, and because so many of the guests I've been talking to from prior episodes. From upcoming episodes, from new episodes and other forms of communication are authors. There's so much wisdom in those books and the ability to read their stories, read their wisdom, that deserves a deeper conversation and community and connection. There will be more events and community. There will be more connection online and in person. But for now, let me tell you about some of the episodes coming your way. Dr. Christina z Patella is a psychologist, tologist, and someone who I met at that Portland Institute retreat. She actually wrote one of the very first scholarly articles using the term Surviving Sibling back in 2011. We talked about her brother Damien, about losing both of her parents recently and about the changing dynamics of family after loss. This conversation was everything. Her article was one that helped me so much back in 2020, and now I am honored to call her a friend and a colleague. Nina Rodriguez of the Grief and Light Podcast and the great grief Collective lost her only brother Joseph. Just a few months before I lost Tony, we, we connected as friends and fellow grievers, and this episode is a beautiful conversation about our brothers and what they mean to us. And largely it is focused on her and her loss. Dr. Heidi Horsley is a licensed psychologist, bereaved sibling, and co-host of the Open To Hope podcast. She lost her only brother Scott nearly 40 years ago in a motor vehicle accident and has done groundbreaking work advocating for surviving siblings, including those who lost siblings. On nine 11. We talked about delayed grief, family dynamics, and something that gave me real hope, the way that memories can return over time. For those of us who fear we're forgetting or will never remember more than we do now. This conversation matters. I also have episodes with several authors who've written powerful books about sibling loss. Susan Kellum, author of brilliant disguise, shared her story of losing her brother Robert to suicide. This conversation really, really stayed with me. Susan's honesty about her brother, big K, as she called him. Her own journey was incredibly moving. We talked about how the same family crisis can impact siblings so differently about the masks we wear and about what it means to live with loss over the decade. Karin McClean, author of Bright Days Do Come About Losing Her Brother, Brian in a horrific car accident that she also nearly died in. We talked about signs, continuing bonds, and as I mentioned earlier, this episode changed something in me and challenged my beliefs about signs and continuing bonds. I spoke with Anne Pinkerton, author of Were You Close, a title that will resonate with. Almost anyone who's been asked that question after losing a sibling or other people, her book Explores Love Continuing Bonds and what closeness really means. Earl Ladon Look Go. A Canadian author of Living with Sibling Grief, imagining a Way Forward, our Conversation as is Herso Social media was incredibly inspiring and there are many more siblings who are sharing their stories. Upcoming episodes, siblings who've lost brothers and sisters to accidents, violence, addiction, illness, and so much more. You'll hear from Valerie and Amy and Paige and Amanda and Jayden and Deidra and so many others as they share their experiences with honesty, love, and courage. Through the conversations that remind me why this work matters, why this podcast matters. Each one's a story of love and loss and the ongoing work of carrying our siblings with us. So I'm back. The broken pack is back and we're expanding. To welcome more siblings into this community. If you've been here from the beginning, thank you. Thank you so much for staying. If you're new, welcome to the pack, and if you're in the middle of your own hard chapter right now, whether that's fresh grief or grief surge that caught you off guard years or decades later, I want you to know it's really, really, really okay. So step back. It's okay to live your grief instead of always talking about it or focusing on it. The next chapter will come when it's ready, and I'm grateful to be writing mine alongside all of you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Our theme song was written by Joe Mylward and Brian Dean, and was performed by Joe Mylward. If you would like more information on the broken pack, go to our website, the broken pack.com. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter, wild Grief, to learn about opportunities and receive exclusive information and grieving tips for subscribers. Information on that, our social media and on our guests can be found in the show notes wherever you get your podcasts. Please like, follow, subscribe, and share. Thanks again.

Music: 14:01

You, you never know. You just never know.