Music playing: 0:00

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

Dr. Angela Dean: 0:11

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. Today I'm joined by Nina Rodriguez, creator and host of the Grief and Light Podcast after losing her only sibling Yosef in 2019. Nina turned grief into a calling. She's here to share her sibling loss story and why she believes grief Take a listen

Music playing: 0:59

because.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:05

Content warning, this episode contains talk of substance use, Welcome to the show.

Nina Rodriguez: 1:14

Thank you so much. It's an absolute honor to be here.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:17

It's an honor to have you. I feel like I already know you from interacting and our siblings

Nina Rodriguez: 1:24

Yeah. I'm so sorry. You know, this pain and I'm so grateful that we connected Our mutual love for these conversations.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:31

Thank you. How would you like to introduce yourself to our audience?

Nina Rodriguez: 1:35

Sure. So today, and I say today because it looks different with every conversation, myself as a creator and host of Grief and Light, which is a podcast and online That was born after the loss of my only sibling, Yosef, in 2019, which He was my only sibling, and I very much continue to be This is mm-hmm. Why I do what I do. Also because I realized that in 2019 when I was going through all of this, about sibling loss, and I really felt that needed to change, as I'm

Dr. Angela Dean: 2:18

Yes,

Nina Rodriguez: 2:19

the work that you do naturally. So today I support Grievers I, my aim is to foster a more grief, informed, hopeful world through conversations about grief and loss. That may sound counterintuitive, but I have found that grief is. Talking about grief and grief work and addressing grief and shedding a light on it is life affirming, deeply life affirming. I try to contribute my grain of salt through the work that I do today.

Dr. Angela Dean: 2:45

Yes. That's beautiful. Your work is really inspiring and I

Nina Rodriguez: 2:48

likewise,

Dr. Angela Dean: 2:49

thank you. The, there's so much truth in what you said about how much talking In August, I was at a grief learning retreat and it was a beautiful experience. I highly recommend it. But just talking about it, giving that space, and we can't live our lives

Nina Rodriguez: 3:08

yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 3:08

So thank you.

Nina Rodriguez: 3:09

A grief retreat sounds wonderful. And also it connects us to what makes life. Mm-hmm. Like the fullness of life, of the full experience. I feel like when we don't talk about it and we avoid it mm-hmm. We don't ever get to the depths of what we could do to feel and experience life. Mm-hmm. Truly. And a lot of it is so uncomfortable. Incredibly uncomfortable. So I, yeah, absolutely. Do understand why people avoid it. And also

Dr. Angela Dean: 3:32

it's.

Nina Rodriguez: 3:32

Very enriching when you do embrace all of it.

Dr. Angela Dean: 3:36

Yeah, for sure. It, to clarify, it was a professional learning retreat, so I can tell you more.

Nina Rodriguez: 3:42

Wonderful. And I'm curious like what, sorry to switch here, but what came out of it and. Maybe

Dr. Angela Dean: 3:47

any

Nina Rodriguez: 3:49

that you weren't expecting.

Dr. Angela Dean: 3:50

So it's through the Portland Institute of Loss and Oregon or Maine? Oregon. It's with Dr. Robert Nemeyer and a whole bunch of other

Nina Rodriguez: 4:00

well-known grief

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:01

theorists and people in that work. Of course, you have to, as you know, you explore your own losses as you're Otherwise, you can't help other people.

Nina Rodriguez: 4:12

Such an important point.

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:13

Yeah. But you're not doing the work with them in the session about yourself, but yeah. Right. Yeah.

Nina Rodriguez: 4:18

That self-examination is so important, and that's part of search and grief journey, because I realized very quickly that my experience. Was not everybody else's experience. Mm-hmm. Internally, externally. And I said, why is this so different? And then I asked about Portland because, fun fact, I used to live there. I lived there for 11 years. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:36

Yeah. What did you do professionally before?

Nina Rodriguez: 4:40

So I, I've always embraced a good pivot. I've considered myself a multipotentialite, and I am not afraid to follow whatever my next season of life calls me to do. So I'm prefacing that because I was in real estate prior to doing grief work. Prior to that I was in public relations. So very unrelated, seemingly. But the thread that ties everything together is a few of them. It's curiosity about the human experience and also ways of supporting people And I would even say prior to that, my first job was in a political think So I've done my fair share of pivots. Grief work has been by far the most aligned, the most intentional, the most Mm-hmm. And the one that feels like a calling more than a job, if you will. It feels like I'm actually here to do this. I'm being called to do this.

Dr. Angela Dean: 5:38

Our stories are similar in that way, but I was. Doing grief work before my brother died. But I'm very intentional about the work and most of my clients are

Nina Rodriguez: 5:49

You do a beautiful job. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 5:50

Thank you. So how would you like to introduce Yosef to us?

Nina Rodriguez: 5:55

Yosef was my baby brother today. What I want to say and is he was my first memory as a little I was three years old. He, I remember him being in my mom's belly. She was about to give birth, and I was telling her how much I wanted to meet him. I was so excited. I remember hugging her belly and she says, you'll get to meet him soon, but you need to go to sleep because it's already tomorrow. And as a 3-year-old, I was like, what do you mean it's already tomorrow? And it was past midnight is what she meant to say. But I didn't understand the concept of past midnight, so I was so confused, and I just remember that being my first memory as. A human on earth, right? And so since I can literally remember, my brother has been a part of my life privilege to be his sister, it is the role that defined me as a person first. It is. The role that I enjoy and love the most. And, and I'm married and I have family and I have all these other roles that I play, but being his sister was and is truly an honor. Mm-hmm. And so he, unfortunately, before I get to the, unfortunately, let's, he was a, And he loved nature. He loved life. He was very curious. Sensitive. He had a sensitive as in mature sensitive. He had a very high emotional intelligence for his age, and unfortunately, two thousands, emotional intelligence is not something that is necessarily part of the public discourse or even prioritized or even rewarded. Being called sensitive was a negative thing, and it mm-hmm actually backfired So that's part of the story. But he loved science or do we know Fun facts. The History Channel. I don't know if any, you know, vintage millennials, remember? Mm-hmm. The Nature Store in the malls in the nineties. He loved that. And all the fun. Anything that had to do with nature. So he wanted to be a pilot. He was funny. He was so funny. He gave the absolute best bear hugs and made really good mac And I never drank iced coffee, but I would drink his because And unfortunately in his early teen years, he started to, for whatever reason, my belief is related to bullying, but I don't know that for for a fact. He started to, I guess. Test drugs like marijuana and things like that with his peers at school, So he struggled with addiction as a teenager, and this is again, in the late were all this talk about sending kids off to these outdoor school camps, which was what the therapists and psychologists and everybody asked us to do. We fought that for some time, and instead, my parents with. The professional's advice put him on medication for ADHD and eventually So he did have to go to an outdoor school camp, which was and is a horrible But we know that in hindsight, because of course the time all the professionals This is absolutely going to help him. So he struggled with addiction for about 20 years. In and out of rehab. We supported him as a family. We, over the years, learned that addiction is a systemic thing. It's a family systems thing. It's not an individual failure. Mm-hmm. It is not a moral failure and it is not something that. The person in active addiction should navigate on their own. So unfortunately, that took us a very long time to learn, and especially because there was no public discourse about addiction that was supportive. It was always shrouded in shame. It was always shrouded in, you don't talk about these things. I remember my dad saying, we don't air our dirty laundry, Yeah, because you step out of your home. You have to pretend that everything's okay.

Dr. Angela Dean: 10:12

Yeah,

Nina Rodriguez: 10:12

and we go to holidays with family, friends, and. Everybody's pretending, and how's your brother? And how's this, how's that? And you just have to fake a smile and say, everything's great. Everything's fine. Even

Dr. Angela Dean: 10:23

with your larger family, your extended family?

Nina Rodriguez: 10:25

Yes, yes, it was to that degree. So at the time we lived in Portland, Oregon, in, in the suburbs. Actually, my brother was away. He was in Utah. And while my brother was away, they didn't want an attempt to protect And to be honest, I would imagine. My parents were not sure how to deal with this themselves. Um, and they struggled with feeling like they failed in some way. And these are my words, not theirs. So I would imagine that's how they felt, because I remember he was there for almost coming home and it was always dark windows closed them, like zombied out by the tv. Mm-hmm. Because they just couldn't believe, I'm sure they dealt with depression. Right. Even though that's not anything we've ever talked about. But it was a very hard time, and my family, my grandparents didn't know, and it was always like, oh, he's at a summer camp. Oh, he's in school. He's at a friend's house. But then after a year of this, my grandparents said, if you don't tell I'm flying. They were. All the way across the country in Florida. So they said, we're flying over there if you're not telling And then we finally told them and they said, that's nothing to be ashamed of. That's really hard. Mm-hmm. And whenever things like this happen, it's better to carry them together, It's better to not do this on your own. It was actually a good thing in the end.

Dr. Angela Dean: 11:45

Oh, good. So you were able to get their support throughout that time as well. Did you feel free to then not have to put on a mask when

Nina Rodriguez: 11:54

So I want to highlight that this happened over a years. This wasn't like one right mark moment where there was a clear before and after. We slowly dripped the information to our family and they took their time and everybody's like, well, why don't you just do this kind of, That would make sense if they didn't understand the depths to And again, I was a teenager myself, so there's a lot that I don't know, to shield me from so much of what was going on in the background. So I'll preface it with that. And after college, I moved to Florida. My family moved to Florida to be closer to the rest of my relatives. That's where I'm currently at. And we hoped that here it would be better not knowing that Florida has some of Than other states. And we didn't know that at the time. He went in and outta rehab here. And at this point in our lives, our families were And so it was helpful. Mm-hmm To be able to not have to hide so much because the hiding and the It makes them fester and become more dangerous and harmful and So we were supported by our family. There were actually a lot more moments of stability. My brother, again, he was in and out of rehab and we really had some beautiful that's the reality of loving somebody with who's experiencing addiction. It's a very layered experience. I was always his keeper. I felt responsible for his joy and his peace. He brought me a lot of peace, and I learned to value the moments of that that the next day it could be something completely different. I never, ever, ever blamed. I think that's what shocked me in speaking with other siblings, that they were They were very angry with their siblings, but I saw how hard he fought and I saw how much he loved our family and how much he tried for us. I wish he would've maybe tried as hard for himself because I know that but my relationship with him was more of just understanding my capacity to. Go from judgment of you are doing this and it's hurting us to, wow, I'm so sorry. And how can we help you? Understanding that a moment of relapse doesn't mean everything's over. It just means this person needs to be supported extra during this time. So expanding our capacity to have compassion for him, support Thing that didn't go our way as a bad thing. It was just more, Hey, this is the reality that we're dealing with. It's as if somebody has a chronic illness and they have a flareup, if you will. So these were the flareups, and you don't judge a person because of a flareup. Right?

Dr. Angela Dean: 14:59

Yeah. I think sometimes losing someone to a stigmatized. But also in that process, the stigma of the mental health or the substance use, or even certain medical conditions that are stigmatized. I think it's really hard for a lot of people to see past those Yeah. And understand who the person is. And as his sister, I can hear you see that. What else would you like us to know about him beyond his illness?

Nina Rodriguez: 15:30

He's not his endpoint. His endpoint does not define his life. Addiction played a huge role. I feel like I have to qualify so much of who he was and how he got there. At the end of the day, if I were to make a pie chart, to give somebody a visual, of who he was, something he struggled with, but the person is what I miss, and I am able to separate the behavior of addiction from who he was and who he was. Honestly, if there were more people like him, this world would be a better place. He was kind, he really understood the meaning of life, the true He used to have this phrase saying called LLPs, Life's Little Pleasures. He would say that on a sunny day he would love riding his bike. We currently, like I said, live in South Florida, so there's And if I would talk to him about something and he would say, that's cool. I'm listening, but can we go walk outside or Can we go ride our bikes outside and you could tell me everything, but let's just do it outside or go to the beach. We would ride to the beach and talk about whatever it was. I trusted him with my life. I trusted him more than a lot of my other relatives. In fact, when he met my current husband and I asked my brother, Because again. Because my brother was sensitive, he was able to read people beyond Mm-hmm. To people. Yeah. Beyond the initial impression. And he said, this is a good person. I like him. And I said, great. My husband learned about my brother's addiction and actually supported our family through so many things and never, not once, not ever judge my brother. And I think that's ultimately why he's my husband, because I realized this The wonderful, funny me, he's so funny. Human being that he is, he brought so much lightness to our lives that I think Life feels incredibly heavy, and there's a lightness that Yosef brought to since his passing, and I'm getting emotional saying this because mm-hmm. It's one of the things I miss most. He carried so much heaviness, and yet he gave people so much lightness. I wish for people to remember him in as a light, as somebody that brought understood the real meaning of life, and sometimes I can feel like a burden, Ultimately,

Dr. Angela Dean: 17:58

I wonder if that's why your podcast is named Grief and Light

Nina Rodriguez: 18:01

part of it. I feel like I still am finding ways to define why Grief and The reason it is, it's because when he passed, people would ask me how he died, and I could not say he passed from fentanyl poisoning. The words would not come out of my mouth because I was in such a or the strength to speak his name and fentanyl in the same sentence and be on the receiving end of so much judgment from people who didn't and do not understand. Mm-hmm. So I would say. We still haven't received the report. We don't know. It was sudden, probably a heart attack and I would say some things like that. And then about two and a half years later, it dawned on me that so much of was because of the shame, was because of our inability to speak the truth out loud, And in doing so, it kept his ability to recover. In the dark and I said, no, I refuse to let shame be the thing that And so I said, I have to start shining a light on these things. I have to speak the truth as pretty or ugly, or whatever it is. It is the truth. And I decided to one day say, you know what? I'm going to say this and what people think is none of my business. What people think is the lens through which they view life. Absolutely. My responsibility is to share my truth, his truth, and the fullness of the story. Also, when we were deciding on the headstone for his plot, my mom this phrase that is now engraved on there, and we speak Spanish. We're from Puerto Rico, so it, I'll say it in Spanish and then May the divine light always illuminate your path or guide you, if you will. Mm-hmm. So the theme of light, the theme of illuminating, the theme of shining a since the beginning, though grief obviously felt very dark and heavy So I feel like shining a light on the reality of loss to addiction on the reality of living life after loss on the reality of navigating grief. Felt very true to what I was experiencing, and so that's one A light,

Dr. Angela Dean: 20:38

you were talking about your husband and He

Nina Rodriguez: 20:42

was mutual. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 20:42

Yeah. And I recently just re-listened to that episode with you and your husband. I related a lot to that. I think that my husband would too, if he listened to the episode. So thank you for that. But it was very clear his personality chose his personality and you both Probably one of my favorite episodes that you've done, but they're all great.

Nina Rodriguez: 21:04

Thank you so much.

Dr. Angela Dean: 21:05

You're welcome. There is, and I've talked about this on other episodes and I'm sure, and dual process model of grief by Stroebe and Schut about living and loss orientation sounds like you're finding that balance between grief and loss pretty well,

Nina Rodriguez: 21:24

and I love that you said finding, because

Dr. Angela Dean: 21:27

Absolutely grief has with us forever. Yeah. Yeah.

Nina Rodriguez: 21:30

And thank you for bringing that up, because I am curious by nature, and so when I don't understand something I delve both feet in. Mm-hmm. To try to figure it out. I think the model that we're most familiar with is the five stages of Grief. That's the one that I obviously found. Then I said, okay, which stage am I on? And am I angry? I don't feel angry, but I'm sad. Okay. And it just didn't quite resonate. Mm-hmm. In understanding grief. That's when I found all the other models and I was like, This isn't the only one. There's like many more.

Dr. Angela Dean: 22:01

It's actually not a grief model for people So it's teaching a grief counseling class right now, and I think everyone in that

Nina Rodriguez: 22:10

Thank you for the class because it's much needed. Absolutely. And for the record, that was by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross, and she never intended it for it to be on grief and life after death. It was always on death and dying to explain the process So I went viral before going viral was a thing and somehow mm-hmm. Stuck because people like tidy, linear Yes. Processes. Unfortunately, I think it has backfired more than it has been helpful. It gives people that initial kind of language to understand grace. So I can definitely honor that and I honor her work as a pioneer in the space,

Dr. Angela Dean: 22:48

It does have its plays in that it helped us normalize talking That all aside, are there other theories that he stuck with you?

Nina Rodriguez: 22:58

Absolutely. The continued bonds theory that shifted how I navigated grief. Once I, I learned that there could be a connection beyond death. Death ends a life, but not a relationship. It doesn't have to in a relationship. It reframed how I saw it and I said, okay, he's not physically here. I can't talk to him. There are things that are happening that feel, make me feel very close to him, If I look at this as a new language that I need to learn, then instead of this happen, instead of questioning and looking backwards, I can start

Dr. Angela Dean: 23:34

Mm-hmm. And

Nina Rodriguez: 23:35

that's what happened. And so in practicing continued bonds, I think that really, really. Help me navigate my loss.

Dr. Angela Dean: 23:43

Yeah. I've been training with Bob Nemeyer and it's the meaning

Nina Rodriguez: 23:50

Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 23:50

And there's a continuing bonds aspect to that, but what you just understand our lives and then move forward and live with this loss, we're like Are there other things you would like us to know about losing Yosef?

Nina Rodriguez: 24:08

When you lose your only sibling and sibling loss is already your birth order impacts or can impact how you grieve an older sibling. Sees a younger sibling as not their child, but someone that they're responsible for in some way, shape, or form, or at least your example is a model to this person. So there's always that awareness that whatever you do will impact

Dr. Angela Dean: 24:37

Okay.

Nina Rodriguez: 24:37

When you are a middle child, I've heard that they feel more he or she, or they were my buddies and we did everything together. When it's a younger person who loses their older sibling. It's like you lose a parent figure or a role model or

Dr. Angela Dean: 24:57

So

Nina Rodriguez: 24:57

these are very general terms, so I don't wanna put blanket a framework for how different it could already be twins losing their twins or triplets losing a sibling that also has its added layers. Absolutely. And so losing Yosef, who was my only sibling. Made me question, am I still a sister if my brother is dead? And I struggled with that for a long time because I said, I feel like his But if somebody asks me, where's your brother? He's not, I don't have one right now. So I struggled for some years to redefine that and this. Moment that I'm going to talk about in a second was the turning point the, I think it was February, so around the time that you lost Tony. Thank you. I'm so sorry. So I was, I. Offered a new position. I was working in real estate. I was offered a new position, and I was introduced to a new team. One of the people that worked there said, well, now that you're an only sibling, and then she continued to talk, but I, everything faded. I could not hear anything after that because I said, what did she just say? That felt like a punch to the gut because mm-hmm. Somebody who barely knew me, who just learned about. Who I am, because I had just met her. And the fact that my brother had passed a few months prior, he immediately said, It's the logical thing. Mm-hmm. A stranger for all intents and purposes, felt completely okay. Redefining my entire sense of identity. Mm-hmm. In that statement. So the shock, I had to excuse myself to go to the restroom. I was crying. Could not. Function the rest of the day because it really shook me. It shook the foundation beneath me. It almost felt like this person understands something about my own

Dr. Angela Dean: 26:48

Oh.

Nina Rodriguez: 26:48

And it's very disorienting. And I said, wow, I'm losing a grip on my own reality is what it felt like. So I went home, I tried to process that. I cried, I did journaling, all the things, and then I got angry. Mm-hmm. And I said. No, that person cannot define me. Nobody can define me. I am still his sister.

Music playing: 27:07

Mm-hmm.

Nina Rodriguez: 27:08

And that's why a very painful moment ended up being a turning and saying, no, I am, and continue to be, and will always be his sister. When people ask me, I will always say, I am Yosef's sister. I have a sibling. I have one brother. He's not physically here, but it still defines me as his sister,

Dr. Angela Dean: 27:29

which is, I'm so glad that you came to that place because when your very first memory is of learning, you're gonna be that you are a sister. My father also, who is a sibling loss survivor, I've said that many times. He said something similar to me at some point after Tony died. He was like, now that you're an only child, and I was like, dad, I'm not. So we can't let other people define us. I wonder if there are siblings out there that would say that, That would,

Nina Rodriguez: 27:59

I have not either, but I always, I guess at the end of the If you've lost a sibling and somehow that feels good in your stomach and your knowing place in your body and your heart and mind. There's nothing wrong with that. Mm-hmm. It didn't feel good in mine. Right. And it doesn't feel like who I am, it doesn't feel aligned with who Mm-hmm. That I know I still embody. But if that's helpful to you, by all means, that's fine. Mm-hmm. We're not saying that's necessarily anything bad or good, it just is.

Dr. Angela Dean: 28:29

That's a great observation and insight I was asking I would be interested to have, understand what is helpful about that if they same. It's interesting that you talked about birth order in that way.'cause I was having this reaction when you said that my brother was 22 months older and he felt more like a peer, I guess, in a lot of ways. I did look up to him, but everyone that met us after a certain point that I didn't have that same worldview that you did or that you thought So,

Nina Rodriguez: 28:58

and that's part of why this experience is so layered and why I preface it with these are not blanket statements because

Dr. Angela Dean: 29:06

Right.

Nina Rodriguez: 29:06

For example, the vast majority of siblings with whom I've spoken that lost a sibling to substance related causes, they're angry.

Dr. Angela Dean: 29:15

Okay?

Nina Rodriguez: 29:16

And that's fair. It was very shocking to me at first because I understood deeply my Okay. But that's not what I've encountered in conversations with other siblings. Okay? They are angry. They said, you hurt our family. You hurt our mom. You hurt me. You hurt your kid, you hurt. Fill in the blank, right? And that's when I realized, wow, we really do have to honor that. Everybody experiences things so differently. And just because I experienced sibling loss this way, doesn't mean it doesn't It makes me an expert in my sibling loss. But I cannot speak with a blanket statement about this experience because

Dr. Angela Dean: 29:57

Absolutely. Yeah. I think there's a tendency for people to experience something. I wanna say that we understand it fully and sibling relationships are complicated. So even if we're just talking about sibling loss survivors and how all of the grief is different, all of the circumstances are different. We can't forget that family dynamics and family relationships and structures

Nina Rodriguez: 30:22

I've also met siblings who were estranged and siblings and they're still grieving the loss of their sibling who was sometimes Yes, sibling hood doesn't look the same to everybody. Okay. There's also dynamics with half siblings. When you get to the nitty gritty and you study each section, you realize complex and nuanced to understand and why it's so misunderstood in the accepted as this is the worst loss versus losses that don't deserve support.

Music playing: 30:58

Mm-hmm.

Nina Rodriguez: 30:59

Sibling grief tends to be at the bottom, and yet, earlier this year I did an event with Reimagine on Sibling Loss. And it got the highest amount of registrations ever.

Dr. Angela Dean: 31:10

So I

Nina Rodriguez: 31:10

said Interesting, because it's the one that they haven't spoken about, and yet there is a desire to speak about this. Mm-hmm. And a desire for siblings to validate their own experience. I think we don't often feel like we can validate our own experience. It's worthy because that's the message that we receive. It's Dr. Dean, how's your mom? How's right? How's everybody else but you

Dr. Angela Dean: 31:33

exactly

Nina Rodriguez: 31:33

that experience. Over and over again makes you think, huh, maybe my grief Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I should be over it by now, and I don't know about you. But I started to internalize that, and then I got angry. And again, I love anger in this sense because it lets me know And every time I feel angry now I say, okay, where's a sense of justice in this So I think if I'm angry that my grief is not being validated, And that's when you know these conversations started So for whatever it's worth, if you're a sibling who is estranged or had a very and you may not understand why you're grieving them the way you are right now. Is perfectly normal. That's perfectly valid. We are more than certain dynamics and interactions, and sometimes we wish to have the opportunity to have fixed it prior to their death. And death puts a final endpoint in that sometimes, and that

Dr. Angela Dean: 32:42

for sure. There's this concept called unfinished business and grief. When that's there, working through that becomes a little bit more challenging. And that is some of the work we do in grief counseling and grief therapy is how But I think it's also important to highlight, because we've talked all continuing bonds are healthy and just like all relationships Continuing bonds are healthy, and so it's okay to not have that bond. If it was an unhealthy relationship. It doesn't mean that you can't work through that unfinished business.

Nina Rodriguez: 33:18

Thank you for that point. Yeah,

Dr. Angela Dean: 33:19

yeah, you're welcome. There was someone, I interviewed Brandy, and she was an estranged twin, of how difficult it can be to grieve someone that you weren't necessarily Sibling is all different. This loss is all different. I think what becomes very salient is the one common thread is that it is a lifelong loss regardless of how young or old you were when you lost your sibling.

Nina Rodriguez: 33:48

And Lynn Shattuck, uh, she, there's a quote by her that really the loss of a lifetime because you lose your past, present, and future. So my brother and I were raised in Puerto Rico in our childhood, Surrounding areas and then to Florida. He was that continuous thread

Dr. Angela Dean: 34:07

and

Nina Rodriguez: 34:07

the one that I could say, Hey, you remember when this happened? And he knows exactly what I'm talking about without me having to explain. I was raised here and over here, and I don't have to explain myself. He just got it. We had our own sibling language, our own inside jokes. One of those things that you just talk to each other with a stare.

Dr. Angela Dean: 34:26

Yes.

Nina Rodriguez: 34:26

When something happened and he knows exactly

Dr. Angela Dean: 34:30

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of people have told me about that, that that look right. I was just at a family funeral a couple weeks ago and there was like, if he was here, we'd be giving each other this look right now. He wasn't so.

Nina Rodriguez: 34:45

That's

Dr. Angela Dean: 34:46

so how, yeah. Are there things you do wanna say about changes in the family or structure that have resulted or other secondary losses from faith?

Nina Rodriguez: 34:56

So many, I honestly could, I've had episodes about this another and every time I think I discover, oh, these are all the changes. No, there's always something else. One thing that feels, I guess I just feel like sharing it in this conversation Timeline milestone, I guess you could call it. When after my brother died and I said, if we can survive until the fifth year of his fifth angel anniversary, I think we're gonna be okay. And for five years I was in this. Collecting data mode is what I call it. Collecting data that we could survive this collecting data, And we did. And actually I look back on pictures and I kind of giggled to myself because I, I'm like, oh my gosh, I was forcing joy so much here. It was so important for me to be like, mom, smile in this picture.'cause I need to know that you could still smile, you know? And so I see the progression of me just trying to prove Since something really weird happened last year, last anniversary, actually two anniversaries ago, because it's been six months in September. This September, since his passing, six months. Six years. What is grief time? So at the fifth anniversary of his passing. I felt an incredibly strange sense of very disoriented, very disconnected, very confused because I said, I reached the milestone. Now what? And unbeknownst to me that milestone provided a foundation for me to stand on in terms of whenever things feel shaky, I have to get to that fifth one. I have to get to that fifth one. So when I got to the fifth one, I was like, oh my gosh, I never made a plan for the sixth one or the seventh or the eighth. So it felt like those movies where there's an astronaut that somehow falls, Mm-hmm. Which floating very disoriented. It felt very much like that. And I said, what now? And so I'm finding myself in years five and six back at Mm-hmm. And. So how does this relate to the family? In the first five years, I handled my parents so carefully not wanting to was like, oh my God, I need to make sure that they're gonna be okay. I need to make sure that I don't show any anger towards them. I need to make sure that I'm incredibly supportive and I'm Years five and six, all of a sudden I'm feeling this sense of anger and resentment I don't know my whole life, but especially over the past five years mm-hmm. Are resurfacing. So now that I feel like, okay, we've proven by my measures, my very arbitrary measures that were okay, we've proven that much. Now I'm feeling some type of way about certain things that happened. Okay. And I'm angry if I'm very honest. I feel, again, that sense of injustice. So the family dynamics have changed in that I am now able to allow myself to The parts that felt unfair, the parts that felt too fragile to talk about. Initially, so now I back at Square one using the tools that I've gained about integrating and all the things to deal with my own grief and also communicate,

Music playing: 38:08

Mm-hmm.

Nina Rodriguez: 38:08

In a different context and understanding that you can grieve somebody and you can also feel all these other things that come along with it.

Dr. Angela Dean: 38:16

Thank you for that, and I think you just gave voice to something I was trying to navigate in my own life, because. Of you that listen to this podcast or have been on it or been on Instagram, know that I haven't been, because as I hit that fifth year, I was like, who was happening? I just felt so overwhelmed by it. I think you just shed light on why this last year and a half has been But we're back.

Nina Rodriguez: 38:41

I, yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 38:41

Yeah.

Nina Rodriguez: 38:42

The fifth year was honestly one of the hardest.

Dr. Angela Dean: 38:44

Yeah.

Music playing: 38:44

Yeah.

Nina Rodriguez: 38:45

I don't wanna scare people either because again, with time you also grow around your grief and you're better able, able to understand and handle. So it's not like it's going to, it doesn't feel like first or second year grief. Okay. And people who have been past those two will understand it's different.

Dr. Angela Dean: 39:00

Yes.

Nina Rodriguez: 39:00

And also there is. A strange heaviness that I think is what you're referring to. That feels a little unexpected. It catches you off guard.

Dr. Angela Dean: 39:09

Yeah, for sure. So where are you today in your grief?

Nina Rodriguez: 39:13

Today? In my grief, I am honoring what's showing up. Not judging it, I'm not should on myself, I should. I love that. Like why I should be feeling this way or I should be in this. There is nothing. I'm a lot gentler and I honor what shows up and I allow it to change me. And I, like I said, I don't see my feelings as. I shouldn't be feeling this if I'm angry. Okay, you're angry. What's underneath that? If you are emotional, like I was listening to your podcast this morning and I got emotional because I said A thank you for these stories. Truly. B, I wish I had this in 2019. Me

Dr. Angela Dean: 39:48

too. Six months after, but

Nina Rodriguez: 39:51

yeah. Yeah, I wish I'd heard this. It would've made me not feel so alone in my grief. Now, I, as a sister, I have felt this responsibility to carry his name forward. I'll also mention that I don't have kids. He never had kids, so there's also a layer of grief with where My family tree branch dies with me, and that's it. And so talking about future, legacy life, what the point of life is, I've purpose, what life really means to me, what my contribution in life is, what I want to do with the rest of my days, all of these things as a result of this loss. I have this weird, I guess it's like a fantasy, a like a weird thing that I'm like, I wish he had a kid that I don't know about. I want this one to knock on my door and be like, your brother was my dad and I would just welcome this being into my life and probably not gonna happen. But you know, it it's that idea of grieving, the lack of continuity and what So it's something I'm still navigating. Mm-hmm. And yeah, it's something new every day.

Dr. Angela Dean: 41:10

Yeah. It sounds like your journey through these last six years as you're redefining meaning and purpose, you've had big M meetings, right? The work that you're doing around grief and loss switching, are

Nina Rodriguez: 41:25

I still have my license, but I'm not active wm.

Dr. Angela Dean: 41:27

Yeah. So you've shifted a little bit to focusing more on grief coaching and feel like the big meaning and the big purpose, but the little m meaning and I think of every day, like how do we find those smaller ways of making meaning? And I loved your brother's term, but LLP, you've really

Nina Rodriguez: 41:51

Thank you.

Dr. Angela Dean: 41:51

So

Nina Rodriguez: 41:52

thank you for sharing that, and thank It's so true. I was just having this conversation with my husband and I said, we Highlight reels that we need to chase. After all the time in these big milestones, I've discovered thanks to my brother and the LLPs, thank you for saying that, that joy is a slow burning candle. That little candle that's not shining super bright, but it's there. Maybe it's scented and it just makes the room smell lovely and it brings a new dimension to the space and you can tap into it whenever you want. Yeah, absolutely. The little M meaning is something I focus on quite a bit.

Dr. Angela Dean: 42:29

That's fantastic. I don't know if you've heard the book by Steven Petrow, the Joy You Make?

Nina Rodriguez: 42:34

Nope, but I

Dr. Angela Dean: 42:35

will. It was on our pod a couple years ago and he spoke about his. Loss of his sister through medical aid and dying. But after that he wrote a book called The Joy You Make. And it's about,

Nina Rodriguez: 42:47

yeah,

Dr. Angela Dean: 42:47

to not happiness and how would you, how do we find joy? Make joy lives. So I think you'd love it.

Nina Rodriguez: 42:53

I absolutely would. And I'm going to listen to your, to that episode right after.

Dr. Angela Dean: 42:57

Yeah.

Nina Rodriguez: 42:58

And also like I spoke with Annie Sklaver Orenstein, she's

Dr. Angela Dean: 43:03

We keep emailing back and forth, and I Great.

Nina Rodriguez: 43:06

Yes. Yes. I hope you do, because. She has a chapter in her book, which I highly recommend. It's the, oh my gosh, I'm forgetting the name. But that how joy can feel terrifying and scary and risky after loss, especially. Mm-hmm. In deep sorrow and bereavement and grieve, joy feels. Like it's taking you away from your person, or it can feel like that. It could feel like you'll never feel joy again. Mm-hmm. It could feel like it's something you resent. And at the end of the day, I want to open the door for those, especially newly You don't have to welcome it right away. You don't have to even go out of your way to feel it. Allow yourself to feel whatever. And also with time, those every day. Joy is start to surface. Yes. And you will feel them more and more.

Dr. Angela Dean: 43:54

And it's surprising when you look back and that you're experiencing was your experience, but you don't feel like it's ever gonna happen, as you said, and then when you do, you look back and you're like, I've been experiencing joy. Yeah. Right. Have you been able to use the continuing bond that you

Nina Rodriguez: 44:11

Absolutely. Absolutely. I, I did an a podcast episode with Dr. Joshua Black of Grief Dreams that I did without knowing is that every time I have very vivid dreams. There were times when I would dream about my brother, and every time I up, as soon as I woke up, I would take the notes section on my phone In a five year span, I've had over 200 dreams with my brother. Most of those are just dreams. Some of them, like a handful of them, have felt like visitations. That is one way that I continued bonds. I know that's not something a lot of people experience. Okay. And would like to, like my mother would love to dream with him. She doesn't, what I learned from Dr. Joshua Black is that you can increase your dream recall rate by writing down your dreams.

Dr. Angela Dean: 45:01

Mm-hmm.

Nina Rodriguez: 45:02

And I thought that was something that was interesting Um, and also. A lot of people say, ask for a sign. And I remember hearing that and I almost got angry. I said, what do you mean after a sign? Sign of what? Right. And also, I opened the door and I said, you know, surprise me with something that I would know is you, and it's happened so many times. Initially I question it now, I just welcome it as again, our new language,

Dr. Angela Dean: 45:30

Yeah,

Nina Rodriguez: 45:30

our new like. Stares across the room, I know that was you. And if it feels like a fo point of connection, if it feels like love or it even reminds you of them, does the, how does this happen? Even matter that much. Like at the end of the day it's, Hey, this reminded me of him. This felt like something he would've said. And then there are experiences that give you chills, that make you pause and you open your eyes and you say, wow, I think that really was you. Mm-hmm. Your energy or something that I'm, I can't quite put my finger So continued bonds has been incredibly helpful to me. Like you mentioned earlier, I'm fully aware that there's a lot of people if the relationship was abusive or if the person hasn't avoid an attachment

Dr. Angela Dean: 46:16

I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. Are there other things that you wanna say about grief or loss or sibling loss? We didn't cover?

Nina Rodriguez: 46:23

A lot of it are cover on my podcast.

Dr. Angela Dean: 46:24

Yeah.

Nina Rodriguez: 46:25

Because I'm always finding new things. But today I feel like saying grief is a normal human response

Dr. Angela Dean: 46:33

Yes.

Nina Rodriguez: 46:34

Grief is not just sadness. Sadness, sure. It's a big part of grief. It's sorrow, bereavement, but they are not the same thing as grief. Grief is the overarching experience that follows a loss. Grieving is how we relate to that experience. So while everybody is going to experience grief, grieving is very individual. Yes. And that dynamic with our grief changes over time, it evolves. And in my opinion, if you lean in, if and when you lean in and you realize that that is your new roommate and it has moved into your house, into your space. You're better off under trying to understand it, lean in, welcome it. It can become a teacher. It can become one of the most powerful, in my opinion, one of the To the point that today I feel like grief work is life-affirming work, and it has helped me live a fuller life because I leaned into it. So that's an invitation. I would never tell anybody what to do. It's more of an invitation to open the door and not try to There is no fixing as much as just lean in, get curious and see the ways in That

Dr. Angela Dean: 47:50

is beautiful. Perfect advice. I couldn't have said any better, so thank you. Are there favorite memories that you would like to share

Nina Rodriguez: 47:57

with us of you

Dr. Angela Dean: 47:58

and

Nina Rodriguez: 47:58

Yosef? Like I said, we love, we love riding bike rides to the beach will This one memory comes to mind. Two memories actually. So our favorite movie was The Lion King, and we were kids, the original one guys. And we used to have Disney PJs that were way too big. They were oversized. And that opening song, I think it's a Circle of Life song. I'm not gonna sing it, but yeah, everybody know the circle. I should SI

Dr. Angela Dean: 48:21

will not sing it either.

Nina Rodriguez: 48:22

The words that they say in another language at the beginning sounded to us like, and I'm gonna say it in Spanish again, I'll translate it. But it sounded to us like in pijamas a las cinco de la mañana. So that means in PJ's at five o'clock in the morning. That's what we understood the song said. I remember this one memory of us in our Disney PJ's early morning. We're watching the movie again. I think it was like after Christmas.'cause we just had roller blades. So we put our roller blades inside the house. Put the movie on in our PJs and we started singing like in our PJs at five o'clock in the morning in the tone of the song. Right. And we were just, it was just pure happiness. Life was perfect in that moment. And a second one I'll share is we went on a family vacation I remember we went camping there overnight and there's these tents. I thought camping was going to be in a cabin, but it was like in a tent. They say don't leave food because there's bears and all these things. I was like, this little piece of cloth around us is So at night we heard, you know, the bears, we heard the rustling, we heard them banging on the trash cans and all these things, and I was terrified. And it was when my brother was going through puberty. So it was like his voice was changing and he had that deeper voice that cracked a little bit and he's like, do you hear that? Be quiet. Be quiet. They can hear people telling him to be quiet because his And I was like, you're going to get us killed by bears, like quiet. And he could not stop laughing and I'm terrified. And we're in this cabin in the middle of Yosemite Park. I'll always, we always talked about that because I was like, you know, bears just by you talking because we couldn't whisper at that time. So those are two fun memories that come up today.

Dr. Angela Dean: 50:04

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing about your grief and Joe's. I feel like I him a little bit better.

Nina Rodriguez: 50:10

Thank you. And thank you for the space to talk about him. Thank you for the work you do and for your podcast. Truly

Dr. Angela Dean: 50:17

same to you. Your work is magical and award-winning, so congratulations on that as well. Thank you so

Nina Rodriguez: 50:23

much. Unexpected. Thank you.

Dr. Angela Dean: 50:25

Yeah, and our listeners should go check that out. Yeah. So I will put all of your links in the show notes as well.

Nina Rodriguez: 50:30

Thank you so much.

Dr. Angela Dean: 50:31

You're welcome.

Music playing: 50:32

Thank you so much for listening. Our theme song was written by Joe Mylward and Brian Dean,

Dr. Angela Dean: 50:36

and was performed by Joe Mylward. If you would like more information on the broken pack, go to our 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 Wherever you get your podcasts, please like, follow, subscribe, and share. Thanks again.

Music playing: 51:05

You never know. You just never know.