Intro: 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. My guest today is Dr. Heidi Horsley, a licensed psychologist, adjunct professor at Columbia University, and with her mother is the co-founder of the Open to Hope Foundation. About 40 years ago, Heidi lost her older brother Scott in a car accident, and that loss became the driving force behind her life's work, hoping grieving siblings find hope. Take a listen. No.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:06

Welcome to the show. I've known you for a while. I'm so excited for this interview, but I wanted to know how you wanted to introduce yourself to our listeners.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 1:16

Hey, I'm Heidi Horsley, Dr. Heidi Horsley, or Dr. Heidi or Heidi. I'm the executive director for the Open to Hope Foundation. I am a brief sibling. My brother, Scott, died in a car accident when he was 17. I am an adjunct professor at Columbia University, and I did my doctoral dissertation on the sudden death of a sibling, no surprise. And I serve on the advisory board for TAPS, the tragedy assistance program for survivors. And I serve on the advisory board for the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation and have a private practice in New York City specializing in grief and loss.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:51

Thank you.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 1:52

Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 1:52

And we met through the Association of Death Education and Counseling.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 1:56

Yes. We opened to help partners with ADEC, a wonderful organization and so glad that we met there.

Dr. Angela Dean: 2:04

Someday I'll convince you that we should write a book together.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 2:08

On our spare time.

Dr. Angela Dean: 2:09

Yeah, right. So would you like to say a little bit more about Open to Hope or what you're doing?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 2:16

Sure. So Open to Hope is an online platform for people looking for hope after loss. I have been doing it with my mom for over 20 years. And so what we do is we interview people like you, Angela, for our podcast. And we also have a cable show. And like I said, we've been doing this for over 20 years. And basically what we want to know is how do people find hope after loss? Everything on our site is free. Most of our guests have, almost all of them have had losses. They've had deaths and they've gone on to find hope again. And so they are the experts in their experience. And we also have over 400 people that write for us. and it's all, like I said, on Finding Hope After Loss.

Dr. Angela Dean: 2:58

I love that so much. Every time I see your booth, I'm so excited to come over. And what I love is that you and your mom and your sister as well are all in this together.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 3:08

It is a family affair. My other sister has now joined also, so I've got two sisters that are involved and my mother. My father was involved, but he died in 2020. And yes, we do it in memory of my brother and cousin who died together. It's been a wonderful labor of love, and we've met so many inspiring people along the way well.

Dr. Angela Dean: 3:26

Thank you for that before we get into losing scott how would you like to introduce him to us.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 3:34

Oh i love that question i've never been asked it either stott was a boy in a sea of girls he was our only brother he was the middle i have two sisters so there's three girls and him he was adored by us because he was the only boy he was very athletic He was very popular and friendly and people loved him. He varsity in three sports. He got a lot of awards. He was the quarterback of his football team, catcher of his baseball team. He was in high school when he died. He was really adored and loved by his sisters. And he was our family mediator and also our family clone and made us all laugh. So losing him was very significant. And he was my go-to person. He was one of my best friends. I would go to him in many, many situations and get his advice and support, et cetera. So, yeah, it was a wonderful relationship.

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:29

What was the age difference?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 4:31

I was 20 when he died. He was three years younger than me. My mother had four kids in six years.

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:36

Oh, wow.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 4:37

God bless her. And I was the oldest, so we were all very close in age. So he was three years younger than me. He was my little brother.

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:44

Yeah. Thank you for that. I'm surprised you haven't been asked that question before.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 4:48

I haven't. I haven't. People ask the way that he died, but they don't ask me about the way that he lived.

Dr. Angela Dean: 4:55

Right.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 4:55

Which is really what I love to talk about because he had such a great personality and was such a wonderful person. And that is not a question that many people ask.

Dr. Angela Dean: 5:05

Especially of a sibling, I think.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 5:07

Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 5:07

Which I'm curious about your experience, because every time I've seen you at ADEC, you're with your mom. And so a lot of our listeners and a lot of our guests have talked about this differentiation that happens between parent loss and sibling loss. Because I imagine your experience is different. Right.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 5:25

My experience was very different. And what happened is with Open to Hope is my mom started doing a podcast for Compassionate Friends. It was radio then because this was over 20 years ago. She started doing a radio show and I was listening and she said, Heidi, what do you think of my radio show? And I said, I think it's wonderful, but you're not talking about the siblings. Our voice is not heard. And once again, we're being unacknowledged and disenfranchised. And she said okay come on and be my co-host then so that's how we got started and oftentimes angela we don't agree because we both have such different experiences and we've had different losses and sometimes i might think she's minimizing my loss and i'll tell her you know we we are very candid on our show about these kind of things so yes i'm coming from the sibling she's coming from the parent loss thank you for that yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 6:17

What would you want to share about losing Scott?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 6:20

The short end of it is he and my cousin Matthew were both 17, and my cousin was driving. They were in Washington, D.C. My brother was a passenger. It was a rainy night, and they were on a bridge, and the car hydroplaned and hit the side of a bridge, and the car caught on fire, and they died pretty quickly because the car ignited. So I lost my brother and my cousin together at the same time.

Dr. Angela Dean: 6:45

And I think that the cousin relationship is close to the sibling relationship, right? It is also one of those relationships that is lifelong differently.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 6:54

It definitely is. And what was interesting is because I lost Scott and Matthew together, I didn't grieve Matthew's death for a long time. I felt so overwhelmed by my brother dying that I just put Matthew on a shelf and was in my own head like, okay, he's gone. He's on a vacation somewhere. He's not here. So I can't even wrap my arms around the significance of two people at the same time. So it was years later that I really visited that loss.

Dr. Angela Dean: 7:25

Thank you for that.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 7:26

Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 7:27

Where were you when you found out?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 7:30

I was at the University of Utah. I grew up in New York, but I was at school in the West and got a call in the middle of the night. It's kind of weird how a lot of times things happen in the middle of the night. I don't know what that's all about. And my mom told me, and she was in D.C. because she was visiting my aunt. That's where she was there. And she was hysterical. And I remember something that I thought was really strange at the time. She kept apologizing and saying, I'm so sorry I didn't save him. And I'm like, Mom, you weren't even in the car. You weren't even there. I don't understand why you're saying this. And she said, because a mother's job is to protect her child.

Dr. Angela Dean: 8:11

Wow.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 8:12

And I found that really interesting because she wasn't there, but I've since learned from talking to other parents that that is kind of a common theme when you have a child die.

Dr. Angela Dean: 8:24

Yeah, that is interesting. I wonder if there's any literature on that. But also, my brother died suddenly from a medical event. I don't think my parents have ever apologized. I wonder if it is more of an apology around accidents.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 8:42

Yeah, and it would be interesting to see if your parents, tricky to ask them, but if they had any thoughts of maybe we should have done more, maybe we should have saved them, even though they couldn't you know you know kind of like magical thinking.

Dr. Angela Dean: 8:56

My mom has said things like that around getting him to go to the doctor. So, yeah, I guess that is a thing that happens.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 9:03

Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 9:04

Yeah.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 9:05

And I'm sorry for your loss. And I know that's how we came together.

Dr. Angela Dean: 9:07

And you as well. Yeah. You earned your doctorate in psychology because of your brother, right?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 9:14

Yes, absolutely. Shortly after he died, I moved back to New York to be closer to my parents. And I was living in the city. And I got an associate's degree in fashion merchandising. And I thought, you know, I'm going to go down this road. I was into fashion. And when he died, that really put my whole life into question. I was like, why am I here? What is my purpose? Why am I still alive? Why was it my brother? What's the meaning of life? And I ended up dropping out of college, moving to Southern California from New York, living there for three years and take a really big existential journey. I ended up working at Nordstrom to make money, but I was there to figure out why I was still here and what my purpose was. It was a long journey. It was a long journey to figure it out. It took three years. And after that, I was still trying to figure it out. During that time, I went on a program called Outward Bound. I don't know if you've ever heard about it.

Dr. Angela Dean: 10:07

I've heard of it. I don't know much about it.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 10:09

It's kind of a wilderness survival program. So my brother was supposed to go, but he had died. He'd been the year before and loved it. So I took his place. And he was very athletic, and I'm not. He was a wilderness person, and I'm not. It was super, super hard. You're there for 23 days in the Colorado mountains. Everything on your back is what you have. You're staying out in the wilderness. During that time, they have a three-day solo, which was amazing because I just kept thinking about why am I here? What is my meaning? And during that time, my dad had given me a book called Man's Search for Meaning, which I'm sure you've heard about. And it's basically the story of how Viktor Frankl not only survives the Holocaust, but ends up writing a book about it and thriving, despite the fact that most of his family and friends die. And he says while he's in the camps, I need to find a will to live. If I don't find purpose, I'm not going to make it. And he quotes Nietzsche as saying, he who has a why to live can bear with almost any how. In other words, if we know why we're here, and you know this, Angela, because you have a major purpose now. If we know why we're here, we're going to be able to get through the everyday. And some of us out there don't yet know why. And it took me a while to figure it out. But I realized two things from that book. One is I needed to find my why. And two, if Viktor Frankl could lose his entire community, his parents, his pregnant wife, his friends, all these people, and not only survive but go on to thrive, I could somehow do it too. And sometimes we have to hold on to people further down the road until we find our why and our hope. And that's why we end our show on Open to Hope saying, if you've lost hope, please lean on ours until you find your own.

Dr. Angela Dean: 11:58

Love that.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 12:00

So after the three years, I found my why. My why was to help other people and give them what I didn't have after my brother died and devote my life to helping people find hope after loss. And that's what I've done. And, you know, from there, I just went back to school. I left California, went back to school and got my graduate degrees. And here I am.

Dr. Angela Dean: 12:21

As I was reviewing for this episode, and I saw all of your degrees after you have the doctorate, and then you went on to get multiple other master's degrees.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 12:33

I did. And everything was about, I was so focused. Before Scott died, I was a solid D student, literally. After he died, I was like, wait a minute, I'm not just going to school to get a piece of paper. I'm going to school to give back and help others get through the worst losses of their lives. So it took on a different meaning and a purpose. Yes I went on to get two masters and a doctorate and everything I did was about learning I was an expert on my lived experience but I wanted to learn as much as I could professionally, about how to help people who had had traumatic losses so everything was focused I did as much as I could and now I took as many classes as I could you know there's not a lot of classes to take absolutely all my internships were focused on give me all the grief and loss cases and people in my internships would say, really? Yeah, you want them? I'm saying, yeah, I want them. I want to learn as much as I can about how to help people.

Dr. Angela Dean: 13:31

Can you say more about meaning and purpose? I know I've talked about it on here and being mentored at PI with Dr. Bob Niemeyer.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 13:39

Love him.

Dr. Angela Dean: 13:40

I know you now as well.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 13:42

Not a better person to do that. I mean, talk about gold standard.

Dr. Angela Dean: 13:45

But I think sometimes people, maybe not in the professional world that we're in, but maybe our listeners, sometimes hear I've lost somebody. I've lost my sibling. I've lost whomever. And there's a pressure if you hear meaning and purpose like i can't make meaning of that right there's a reaction to hearing that that can feel really negative and you and i both have obviously made meaning and purpose out of our losses in some way so i'm wondering what you would tell someone that's having that reaction i.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 14:18

Would say one is sometimes people feel overwhelmed because they're like i'm trying to survive here i get that because i've been in that space and you can do things that are small. I think one of the main reasons I'm on the earth is to keep my brother's memory alive. And I say that to siblings all the time. We know things about our siblings no one knows. We've got a shared history. We grew up together. So pass those stories down to the next generation, to friends that didn't know them. That's part of why we're here, I think. And my kids know my brother even though they've never met him because I'm constantly sharing stories about our sibling relationship with them and about him.

Dr. Angela Dean: 14:59

Uh-huh.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 15:01

And I think that, yes, when you say find meaning, it can feel like you're minimizing or unacknowledging the significance of the death. Having somebody die and a brother die is horrific. It is horrible. It brings you to your knees. It turned my world upside down. It put everything I ever knew into question. I didn't want to find meaning, and I didn't want to continue in bond with him. I wanted him here in the room, now alive. So it took me a long time to say, Heidi, plan A is not going to happen. It's not going to happen. And people would say to me, Heidi, you know, he wants you to be happy, and he wouldn't want this. And I got that. My mind got that. but your heart sometimes takes a while to catch up with your brain and your mind it took me a while to really live my best life and to find hope again so i understand initially those kind of words meaning purpose continuing bonds are hard to wrap your arms around and i finally had to say okay i have to go to plan b c d z i can't have him here but i can honor his memory by living my best life and I can still have a connection with him and still think about Scott what would you say if you were here and how you know sometimes I call on him and just in my head and say give me strength or tell me what would you be doing if you were here what advice would you give me we have conversations and I imagine what he would say to me but initially it's hard to do that because initially you're just in so much pain yeah it takes a while to get to that space I think.

Dr. Angela Dean: 16:36

It sounds like even that trip, you said you weren't an outdoors person and you weren't athletic, was some of learning more about him in his element?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 16:49

Yeah, I never thought about that, but it was. It was a very painful time for me because it was very, very difficult. When my brother died, I wanted my life to reflect how I was feeling on the inside. When he died, it was April and it was a beautiful day. And it was sunny and it was gorgeous and I was outside. I didn't want that. I wanted it to be raining and storming and horrendous. so going on outward bound and having the elements and having bad weather and good weather and having a harsh environment fit where i was internally it was really really physically hard and it was also very it was even more emotionally hard because i was grieving his death and i could grieve openly and people thought oh she's sad because this is a hard mountain to climb it was a hard mountain to climb but not in the physical sense it was the emotional mountain i was climbing to learn how to live my life without one of the most important people in it.

Dr. Angela Dean: 17:47

I love that insight and that metaphor, right? The mountain to climb. There was a business coaching trip when I decided I was going to develop the Bergen Pack into what it is now, but also what it will be. And I was climbing a mountain, and I just wasn't sobbing. And people were like, oh, it's really hard. I had the same. It was, because I was really out of shape, but also, I got to the top, and I was like, I couldn't have done this without my brother.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 18:16

Yeah, isn't that amazing? I had the same experience. There were times on Outward Bound where I was like, I can't do this, and I would just channel his memory and his strength, and it would push me through.

Dr. Angela Dean: 18:27

Yeah. How do you feel his presence now? It's been 20 years?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 18:34

It's been 40 years.

Dr. Angela Dean: 18:36

40 years, I'm sorry.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 18:37

And people freak out about that.

Dr. Angela Dean: 18:38

Making you much younger.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 18:40

I love that. I love that, Angela. People freak out about that because they're like, oh, my God. I'm like, but I'm here as an anchor saying I'm further down the road. I'm here for people that are not as far down the road to hold on to because we need people that are further down the road. And that being said, I think one of the things I've learned the most and I've been most surprised about is how his death still impacts me today. I'm shocked. Not always in negative ways because I've had a lot of post-traumatic growth. But sometimes I'll get overwhelmed by something and I'll be surprised. I'll be like, wow, I can still be brought to my knees about this. The difference is now when I'm brought to my knees, I recover very quickly. Back in the day when I would be brought to my knees, it would wreck me for days.

Dr. Angela Dean: 19:31

What has surprised you recently about how the loss has impacted you?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 19:36

Okay, great example. The other day I went and saw Wicked. The second Wicked, okay, with my daughter. And that song at the end, because I knew you, I've been changed for the better. And I've been changed for good. I was in my head with my brother. Because he has changed me for the better and for the good. And I was right there with him and I was reviewing all the memories with him and I was like, wow, this is really hitting me. I was crying, etc. I'm trying not to really lose it in the movie theater. But I was surprised that I could go to that level of grief in my heart still.

Dr. Angela Dean: 20:13

Yeah. I love how you said having people down the road has been helpful. Right before we started recording, I shared with you that I haven't released a lot of episodes in the last year because the five-year anniversary was last year and it was hard. And so what I did do was look to all of you that are down the road ahead, like how inspiring.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 20:38

That can be. That's really hard, Angela. Five years is not that long.

Dr. Angela Dean: 20:43

I know.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 20:43

And you think you're gonna have your brother in your life until you're 85 years old or longer.

Dr. Angela Dean: 20:48

Exactly.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 20:49

You know, it's not that long. I mean, my grandparents outlived my brother, two of them. So, you know, we think in life that we're gonna have all these milestones. You thought, you know, you're gonna grow old with your brother, you might have kids with them, you might go to their weddings and their graduations and all these monumental events that are going to happen. And every time there is a family reunion, a family birthday, a family get-together, he is not there.

Dr. Angela Dean: 21:21

Right.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 21:22

And I'm always aware of that. I never forget about that. It always tugs at my heart because I'm like, he won't be here physically. I want to think that he's here in other ways, but he's not here physically, which is tough. So my heart goes out to you.

Dr. Angela Dean: 21:41

Oh, thank you.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 21:42

Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 21:43

You said at the beginning that he had all of these roles, right? He kept the family together, the mediator, the clown.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 21:51

Yes, he was funny. He was very funny. And, you know, my sister and I fought a lot. One of my sisters. My sister and I are very close now. We all got very close when he died. But she is 16 months younger than me and we were very close in age and we fought growing up a lot and he mediated all that so you know he'd be like you guys stop you know calm down and so you know to have the mediator gone it's like okay well what are we gonna do now we got to figure this relationship out i mean are we gonna keep doing this i mean siblings are here but we can't count on them always to be here which.

Dr. Angela Dean: 22:29

Is something that unfortunately most of our listeners will understand.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 22:33

Right how.

Dr. Angela Dean: 22:36

Did you navigate those family dynamics what did that look like.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 22:41

We had to really figure out who we were without him in the room. It's kind of like without him in our family. My dad was not an athletic big guy, and my brother was. So my brother, he would do all the physical stuff in the house. He put up the Christmas tree. He was very handy with everything. And so we had to figure out who was going to fill all those roles. I kept my maiden name because who keeps Heidi Horsley? Especially when they can have Heidi Redding. And I mean, you know, I was teased my whole life about my last name and my first name. And people used to tease me. And then when my brother died, I'm like, well, I'm the oldest. I'm going to keep this name. So we all tried to fill roles that he played. You know, I tried to fill the last name role and the academic role. And my sister tried to fill the athletic role. We all came in. My other sister named her oldest son after my brother. We all tried to fill that void. And we filled a lot of it. And there was a lot of it that none of us could ever fill. We had to renegotiate who are we without him it's like having a table with six legs and we take you saw one off the table falls over not study anymore so it's a really big transition to have somebody die in the family and try to figure out who is this family now and it's an identity loss who was i who am i without a brother who was i you know i had to really wrap my arms around my own identity and create a new one because we create new normals we can't go back to the normal or the old normal is gone we have to figure out how to step into a new normal as you know yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 24:16

There's this idea your sibling knew you so well you have many siblings they all know you differently.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 24:24

Absolutely.

Dr. Angela Dean: 24:27

The day he died changed you in ways that he could never understand. So if he was here now, what would he still recognize about you or what wouldn't he? Aside from, you know, 40 years.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 24:41

I love this. There's a lot of things. And even initially, I changed a lot when he died. I love people. I like being fun still. And I like, you know, kind of being an optimistic person, etc. I think you would be shocked how academic I am. And how I really threw myself into school because that was not something I ever did. My nickname in high school was Airhead02. They used to call me that. So I think what happened, I know, right? I think what happened when he died is I was like, life is much shorter than I thought. I need to take my life seriously because I'm not. I did not take my life seriously. They used to say, find Heidi and you'll find the party. I mean, I was so carefree without a care. And I realized, wait a minute, Heidi, life is short. What kind of mark do you want to leave on the world? What do you want to leave? You need to get more serious about why you're here. And so that happened pretty quickly after he died, which is why I left and went to California to figure out my why. And people wanted the old Heidi back. I was in a sorority. I got the honor pledge, which is like the one with the most school spirit. I was that girl. And I wasn't anymore. None of my friends had ever had a sibling die. I didn't know anybody my age that had a brother or sister die. And when I went back to school, people were like, what happened to you? When are you going to come back and act normal like the way you used to act and i'm like that person isn't here anymore i mean i'm trying to figure out who i am now you know and that's why i had to leave school altogether because there was a lot of pressure on me at that point, to go back to the way i used to be and i really needed to figure out who am i now who am i now without stop on the air it's.

Dr. Angela Dean: 26:33

A painful process.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 26:35

It is it is and and you don't go and have this existential journey and all of a sudden go okay i've got it all figured out, grief is in waves you'll be doing well maybe for a certain period of time it could be an hour it could be a day and something will happen it'll knock you to the ground and you're like wait a minute i didn't realize and it'll bring you to your knees and you'll say wait a minute i thought i was going forward you go forward and you go back and you go forward and you go back it's complicated, and it's confusing and sometimes initially i was like i'm going crazy i don't know who i am i don't recognize myself it really is a journey certainly.

Dr. Angela Dean: 27:14

Is i'm simultaneously saddened for you and also relieved to hear you say that this many years later you're still having those waves that knock you down.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 27:27

Absolutely while.

Dr. Angela Dean: 27:29

Also you said they don't last as long.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 27:30

Things will happen when my son was born and he's 27 now. I looked at him, and I was like, my gosh, my brother's DNA is in this. It was just very profound. I was looking at my son crying. It was bittersweet. I was crying because my brother would never meet him. He would never know him. And I was crying tears of joy because part of my brother, I felt like there was DNA in there that would go on. So there was new life in the family after having him die. So that was amazing. So it was a bittersweet moment. And, you know, my brother has had such an impact on so many decisions I've made in my life. And I always say to siblings, look back at a lot of decisions you've made. Because a lot of them, even that are not in your awareness, are because you had a sibling. And are impacted by the fact that you had a sibling. I mean, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. I wouldn't even be in this career. I had a child I had a son that was wonderful we were living in New York City at the time and you know in an apartment so you're not living in a big space and I said to my husband we have to give you know Aristotle a sibling and my husband said well why because I was having fertility issues and so he was like let's this is great one kid is wonderful I'd had two miscarriages let's stop and I said Marcus my life has been really impacted by the death of my brother. Come hell or high water, my son is getting a sibling. Now, if my brother had never died, I would have probably had one child. So in 2006, my sister and I flew to China and we adopted daughters so that our sons could have sisters. And that was influenced by the fact that we had a brother on the earth. And now my daughter's just had her gotcha day january 8th 20 years i adopted her 20 years ago at the age of one and watching my kids grow up was amazing because it was bittersweet again i would see them connecting and hugging each other and playing and doing all the sibling stuff you do the good the bad the everything and it would bring back memories of my relationship with my brother yeah, So there's all these milestones that just bring it right back as if it happened, you know, as if, wow, you know, you're right there in it.

Dr. Angela Dean: 29:52

My aunt said something. I was younger. My brother obviously died not as long ago, and I only have one child. But my aunt said something. There were four of them, and my dad's brother, her brother, was murdered in Italy before they came here. And so my dad, a sibling-loss survivor, which I never really thought much about, or until my own brother died, selfishly, I guess. But my aunt always said, because my dad and mom had us two, and then the two sisters had three kids each. My aunt always said she always wanted to make sure that she had more than two children in case they lost one sibling. So it's interesting that perspective that you also had similarly.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 30:42

Yeah, I wanted my son to experience the sibling bomb, but I've heard that, Angela. And also, I've heard siblings say I wanted three because one might die. And I also had a friend that's had a sibling that was a sick baby, a sibling that died when he was a baby. And she only wanted one because she was worried that he had a daughter. She was worried that if she had a son, he might die. It was interesting. It's just interesting the way a sibling death impacts our decision making and what we're thinking in our heads, right? And it also impacts the way we parent.

Dr. Angela Dean: 31:16

Yes.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 31:16

You know, they talk a lot about, oh, when a parent has a child die, it impacts the way they parent the other kids. But very little is spoken about the fact that when you have a sibling die, you parent your own kids differently.

Dr. Angela Dean: 31:30

Right.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 31:30

And it might not even be in your awareness because the world looks different. Things have happened to you. Maybe other people haven't had that experience. So I parent very differently than I probably would have started with.

Dr. Angela Dean: 31:44

Your cousin that also died, I'm sorry, what was his name?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 31:47

Matthew.

Dr. Angela Dean: 31:48

Matthew. Did Matthew have siblings?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 31:51

Yes. And it was interesting watching both of our families. They had five children. My aunt and my mom had planned to have kids together. So, you know, the oldest daughter and me were the same age. The second one was the same age as my sister. Matthew and Scott, same age. She just had five. So she had another one. And then Heather, my little sister, and she had a son. They were the same age. And she had a younger one. And it was interesting watching two families. And you would think that we would come together a lot and talk about it, but we didn't do it that much. We did come together, but it was really hard to talk about it. There's something about being with people that have had a shared experience that initially it was hard to speak about it. Because we both really felt the other's pain to a certain extent. We kind of knew what the other person had dealt with. so we didn't talk as much as you would think about it right.

Dr. Angela Dean: 32:44

It was the same tragedy right the same tragic accident yes i don't usually talk about myself this much on the podcast i.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 32:54

Love it you are.

Dr. Angela Dean: 32:55

I lost two cousins as well wow and they were one was i think she was 35 five from a, it was a terminal illness, a genetic disease that runs in the family. And the other one died by suicide. And they were siblings.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 33:13

Wow.

Dr. Angela Dean: 33:14

And I don't have a close relationship with their surviving sibling, except for when my brother died. He was able to talk to me a little bit about that. But similarly, it's not something in our family that people came around and supported one another.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 33:30

Yeah. That was similar. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 33:34

How are you doing today with your loss? I know that can be a different answer tomorrow, but how are you doing today?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 33:41

I'm doing really well. And I have a lot of joy in my life and a lot of hope. And I think the things that have helped me the most, and research does show this too, are adaptive coping skills, which I've learned, and peer support. What's really helped me in my journey is finding other siblings like yourself who have had this loss. Because it really normalized a lot of what I was going through and they validated and did not minimize what I was going through.

Dr. Angela Dean: 34:12

Right.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 34:12

So I kind of found my people. And in fact, I have four very dear friends. We call ourselves the Fab Five because we all lost fabulous brothers. And we have known each other for over 20 years and every year we take a trip together in honor of our brothers.

Dr. Angela Dean: 34:26

I love that.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 34:27

We met through the Compassionate Friends, which is an organization for people that have had children and siblings and grandchildren die and yeah it's a great way to pay tribute to our brothers and we get together we have a lot of fun, so it's it's wonderful i've met amazing people in this field that have had losses and in my journey.

Dr. Angela Dean: 34:48

I met christina zampantella and it was similar like we felt like we had known each other forever. Her article was also one of the first ones that I had read when Tony died.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 35:02

It is interesting when you meet a brief sibling because there's a bond. It's hard to explain, really. It's hard to give words to.

Dr. Angela Dean: 35:09

Because you don't have to teach people that my loss is valid. We just understand.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 35:16

Exactly.

Dr. Angela Dean: 35:16

That the parent loss isn't worse. It's just different, right?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 35:21

Absolutely. A lot of siblings that have come to me and said, Heidi, I put this on the shelf for 10 years. Or I haven't even thought about this. I've denied it. I've cut it off. But now it's wreaking havoc on my life. I need to talk about my sibling death. And that can also be normal because when our sibling dies, sometimes I was focused on taking care of my parents. They were a mess. I was a mess too, but I'm like, I got to put my own stuff on hold and be there for them. And society was also telling me, be strong for your parents. The worst death that can ever happen is the death of a child, which we know is not true. All deaths are horrible. When I would tell people I had a brother die, they'd say, how's your mother? The focus was always on my parents so for a long time I didn't even realize that hey wait a minute, I have the right to grieve also this is horrific this is horrible this is terrible and I knew it was but I wasn't really talking to other people about it for a while I was kind of just keeping it to myself.

Dr. Angela Dean: 36:20

Yeah, I did my professional role. When I do an intake and I ask about losses, and somebody will flippantly mention that they lost a sibling, they always welcome the ability to talk about their sibling. And it's been interesting also because we do a lot of assessment for other things. And the amount of times that sibling loss has come up recently, in which that was a trauma that wasn't addressed in some way that is impacting them now. astounds me. And so I've been educating my team on civilian loss for that reason.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 36:56

I love this. You know, in 2001, after 9-11, I was called back to New York. I was living in San Francisco at the time, finishing my dissertation. I was called back to New York to work with the fire department for 10 years on a longitudinal study, looking at traumatic loss over time in firefighter families that had had a firefighter die in the trade center. All the funding was going to the death of a child, the death of a spouse, and the death of a parent. For five years, I was not allowed to work with the siblings because nobody did, not in the fire department. And it was really infuriating for me. I'm like, the siblings need help. And they're like, yeah, but all these other losses are more significant. And I said, no. They're not. So I thought on a scale as big as 9-11, people would have gotten it, but they actually didn't. It actually reflected every other kind of loss, where it was a disenfranchised loss that people didn't see as significant as the death of a child, the death of a spouse, and the death of a parent. And finally, when I did end up working with the siblings at year five, I worked with them in a group setting and they were angry. And they had every right to be. So, you know, I spent many, many months validating that before we could move on and say, okay, now what are we going to do about this anger so that it doesn't wreak havoc on your life and your body? But initially, it was just validating and acknowledging that they had been overlooked and marginalized and minimized.

Dr. Angela Dean: 38:25

Yeah. Thank you so much for advocating for them.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 38:28

Yeah. You're welcome.

Dr. Angela Dean: 38:30

I wonder if you hadn't been involved, if that would have even happened.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 38:35

It's a good question. Yeah and the funding wasn't there for the siblings interesting is.

Dr. Angela Dean: 38:42

It now do you know i mean i don't know how much funding is still.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 38:45

Yeah i don't know how much funding is still available i mean i myself see my fdo my family's pro bono and i will for the rest of my life because i'm committed to being there for them it's part of my meaning it's like we find meaning in little ways right yeah, Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 39:05

So while we're talking about this difference in losses, the parent loss, the child loss, you did say that you disagree with your mom and your vocal about that. Do you want to say more?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 39:17

I'm trying to think of specific things that she says. Well, occasionally she will talk about the fact that the worst loss is the child loss. And I say, Mom, the worst loss for me was my brother's death. That's the loss that I know. That's the loss that brought me to my niece. So, the other thing is, she sometimes assumes that because my brother and I weren't living under the same roof at the time, that it must have not been that big a deal for him to die in my life. It must have not been as significant for me. And that's not true. Because we talked all the time. We were on the phone. We were still very connected, even though we weren't living under the same roof. And I felt like I lost not only my past, but my future with him. The opportunity to grow old. The opportunity to go through life with him. We were parallel travelers. Most siblings will spend 80 to 100% of their lifetime with their sibling. In comparison, most of us will spend only 40 to 60% of our lifetimes with our parents on the earth. Because often your parents will die before you.

Dr. Angela Dean: 40:20

Yes.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 40:20

So I think it was hard for her to really understand the significance of my loss. It still is hard for her. She's understanding it more because we've been working together for a long time. But it's been a big learning curve for her.

Dr. Angela Dean: 40:35

When I first met her at the conference, I think it was in Columbus, she immediately was like, oh, you have to talk to Heidi.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 40:43

I love that.

Dr. Angela Dean: 40:44

She gets it. Yeah, so she does see it.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 40:47

She does. She does see it. And she's really good about me pushing back. She'll say, tell me more. If we've got a sibling on our show or whatever, and she says, well, tell me about how your parents are doing. I'll go, mom, we're here to focus on the sibling. Stop. Because what happens is that shuts us down because our parents aren't doing well, oftentimes, initially. So then we start talking about our parents and how our parents are doing. And then it just becomes another conversation about how our parents are.

Dr. Angela Dean: 41:13

One of the first interviews, I had a guest host interview me. In hindsight, he's a friend, but doesn't have a sibling. I don't know why I chose him, other than he had a podcast, to interview me. He was astounded that people will ask about how your parents are doing. I said to him, I would love that answer to be better, but I'm also here. It's really hard to say something, as you said, when you're asked that question. I'm interviewing the author of a book called Were You Close?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 41:44

Mm-hmm. I like that.

Dr. Angela Dean: 41:47

Yeah, you should read the book.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 41:50

Yeah, I like that title.

Dr. Angela Dean: 41:53

And the very first part of the book, she talks about this question, like your mom assumed you weren't living under the same roof, that you weren't close.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 42:01

Right.

Dr. Angela Dean: 42:02

And this is such a bizarre question. I know that I'm guilty of asking that in my intakes at time to time when people are talking about who they lost or their parents or how close were your relationship. We can't quantify that. What does that even mean? But it's not always for other people to know or judge. And so I think to your point of you weren't living in the same house, but you have all of these memories. You had this whole expectation and this lifetime of what your life was supposed to be like with all of your siblings here.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 42:33

Exactly. And the other thing is, for those that had ambivalent relationships, those are sometimes the hardest to work through after someone dies. Those are some of the most emotional because there's no time on earth to have a different relationship. Our relationships transform and change as we age. I mean, my sister, if she had died in high school, that would have been a very difficult relationship for me to unpack because we didn't get along. We didn't get along until I was out of the house, until I was an adult. And thankfully, she didn't die because I've had a lifetime to work through our relationship and we're best friends now. But that wasn't always the case. So I have a lot of siblings that will come to me and say, I didn't have a good relationship. And I don't know how to deal with this now. I have regrets or guilt.

Dr. Angela Dean: 43:26

Right. But there are ways to work through that in therapy. I want to make sure our listeners know that. But it's not in the same way that you can if the person is physically here. And yeah, so these questions that people ask any griever, and I think sometimes siblings, Thanks. We're just, it just feels safer to ask the obnoxious question.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 43:48

Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Dr. Angela Dean: 43:50

We're not going to ask the grieving parent, like, were you close to your child? We're just not going to do that.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 43:55

Well, I read a poem once, which is really great. It said, were you close? And the person said, yes, but we didn't know it then. So in other words, when the, sometimes when someone dies, you realize all the roles they played in your life. It might even be that they were devil's advocate or that you tried different hats on with them or that you debated with them or that you fought with them but you realize all the rules once they're not here anymore, you're like wow they had a much more significant impact than I even realized yes.

Dr. Angela Dean: 44:23

Did you learn that about your brother?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 44:27

Absolutely yes I realized all the roles he played when he was no longer here yeah, One of the things about sibling loss, which is complicated, is sibling relationships are complicated.

Dr. Angela Dean: 44:40

Yes.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 44:42

Because these are people in our family and they're safe people, we take liberty with them we might not take with our friends. We might argue with them more. We might push back more. We might try different roles on. They're our best friends. They're our arch enemies. They're our playmates. They're our people that we fight with, all on the same day.

Dr. Angela Dean: 45:01

Yes.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 45:02

They play many, many roles. it's extremely complicated a lot of siblings i know including myself the last thing i said to my brother was not i love you it was just hey see you later oftentimes you hear parents say the last thing i said to them was i love you that wasn't usually how we ended our relationship just our when we see each other we just say hey see you later it was not like that so they're complicated relationships and that's why when a sibling dies before their time it's complicated. Because you're like, wait a minute. Like you said, I don't have time to work through stuff. I don't have time to tell them things I might want to have told them. I love you so much, etc. You know, and you're not expecting it. You're blindsided. You just do not expect a sibling to die. You expect to grow old with them.

Dr. Angela Dean: 45:54

Yeah, thank you for that. Are there other things that you want to say about loss or grief or sibling loss in general before we wrap up?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 46:02

I think sometimes people are really afraid that they're going to forget. They're going to forget the person as time goes on. They're going to forget what they look like, how they acted. I find that the more the years go by, I have more memories. Because we remember in picture form. So Angela, when you go into pictures of your brother, of memories of film of your brother, you and your brother growing up, So I'm guessing that you become very upset and sad and the grief can be overwhelming.

Dr. Angela Dean: 46:36

Uh-huh.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 46:38

Where I am in this journey, which is many, many years further than you, the grief doesn't get in the way of those memories. I can go deep in my head into some really incredible memories, and the grief doesn't block that. I'm in them without getting overwhelmed and sad and, you know.

Dr. Angela Dean: 46:59

That's inspiring. Thank you. I was thinking about that recently. I was like, I feel like I don't have any memories half the time.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 47:06

Yeah, exactly. which is so normal at five years. You're like, why am I not remembering? Why can't I access those spaces? It's almost like your body's protecting you from becoming really overwhelmed. I don't need that protection anymore. I can go into looking at him, seeing him on his bunk bed, thinking about him teaching me how to drive a stick shift. I can go into those spaces. I'm there. I'm there with him in my head. And nothing is blocking that. Some of the best memories are yet to come as you get further along in your journey.

Dr. Angela Dean: 47:38

That is a perfect segue into the question that I ask every guest, which is, what are some of your favorite memories of your brother?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 47:47

My favorite memories, one of them, this is so him, I was going to take a little portable television to school. My parents said I could take it. And so I went to get it because I was leaving for the semester. I wasn't coming home for the year because I was in school across the country. He had gone to the high school for the day. I went up to his room to get my television set that my parents said I could take, and he had handcuffed it to his desk because he didn't want me to take it. And so I did. So it was going nowhere. And it was so him. I was mad and I laughed at the same time because it was so him. Another memory I have is when I was in high school, and he was only three years younger than me, and I would go and watch him in football. He was the quarterback of his football team. I'd go watch their team play. And one day he said, Heidi, can you stop wearing shorts and a halftop to watch me play sport? You're distracting the team. But he was funny. Also, when I used to go on dates, I could hear him. He had blinds that like turned. I could hear him turning the blinds, opening the window and looking out to spy on me with my date. He was always spying on me. I was like, okay, Scott, I know you're up there in your room spying on us. We'd be at the front door. So there's just a lot of memories like that.

Dr. Angela Dean: 49:03

I'm here for sharing that.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 49:04

Yeah.

Dr. Angela Dean: 49:05

Is there anything else you wanted to say before we...

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 49:09

And I guess just to remind people that there is hope, even though sometimes it might not feel like it, it might not look like it. There is post-traumatic growth after loss. And if there wasn't hope, there's no way I could do what I was doing. People say to me, what you do is so depressing. I say, it's not depressing. It's the opposite. it. Meeting people at the darkest moments of their life and the most difficult and partnering with them and walking with them and companioning with them into the light and into hope is really rewarding. And I just want to say to people, it takes a lot of time. Everybody's on their own timeframe. Don't let people shit on you and tell you, you should be doing this. You should be here. you should be there. I think oftentimes as a society, we want to fast track grief and we want to push people quickly because oftentimes people can't handle it. They don't want it. They don't want to feel our grief or see our grief. They want us to be fast track it. It's a journey. It takes a while. And there is hope, like I said.

Dr. Angela Dean: 50:13

Yeah. Thank you for that. And where can people find you?

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 50:16

They can find me at opentohope.com.

Dr. Angela Dean: 50:19

Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for coming on.

Dr. Heidi Horsley: 50:21

Angela, thank you so much. And thank you for what you're doing. And thank you for building awareness for such an important topic. And thank you for turning your painting to purpose.

Dr. Angela Dean: 50:30

You're welcome. And you as well.

Outro: 50:32

Thank you so much for listening. Our theme song was written by Joe Mylward and Brian Dean and performed by Joe Mylward. The Broken Pack is more than a podcast. Visit thebrokenpack.com to sign up for Wild Grief, our newsletter, and to explore everything else we're building. If today's episode resonated, you can send us fan mail or support the show using the links in the show notes. Information on Wild Grief, our social media, resources, and our guests can be found wherever you get your podcasts. Please like, follow, subscribe, and share. Thanks again. Thanks again.