My sister Triona got sick in November 2016. She was nauseous and vomiting and it went on for weeks. Her GP told her there was a terrible gastro bug going around and that it would go away with time. Triona had Crohn’s disease so she was very used to being unwell. She was one of those people who could function very well [when she was sick], whereas the rest of us would take to the bed.
ut she knew herself it was more than a tummy bug. It was going on too long and because she had been sick for so long in her twenties, she was really aware of her own body. She went back to her GP a few times and they were adamant that it was just a bug.
On Christmas night we were in our sister’s house and Triona had to leave. In the weeks afterwards, I took some time off work to look after her. In February, we rang the GP again and this time he said: “If it’s that bad, call an ambulance.”
She was moved to a ward on a Tuesday. On the Saturday, they discovered she had a blockage in the bowel and kidney stones as well. Triona passed away at the age of 34 on the Monday morning at 4am. They told us in intensive care that she should have been there three days ago. Do you know when people talk about fighting for your life? Triona fought so hard, there was an internal battle. But we were actually having to fight doctors to do something. They genuinely did not know. They didn’t realise the gravity of the situation. We were so powerless to do anything about it. It was the most horrific, traumatic experience to go through.
Triona was the baby of the house. She had no kids but our kids were her kids and she was a super auntie. She was such a kind, altruistic person. If I was working flat out or under pressure, she would come over and do my housework or a stack of ironing. She did that for all her friends and neighbours — anybody who needed a bit of help.
She tried so hard to make other people happy and she did that by loving them and attending to their needs. I’m not trying to make her out to be Mother Teresa because she could be crabbit and wicked as hell as well, but she genuinely was so good and she taught us a lot about quietly doing things for other people.
Up until that point in our family, death had followed the natural order of things. We had lost our great-grandparents and grandparents and great aunts and uncles… And naively, because of that lack of life experience, the grief after Triona’s death was more than just feeling really sad and not being able to stop crying. It was so physical and so tangible. I felt as if I could project it out in front of me, like it was a physical thing. It was so frightening and I had no idea what was going on.
‘They say grief feels a lot like fear, and that quote was one of the first things that resonated with me when I was trying to get help online. I thought, ‘Okay, this is normal what I am feeling here’’
Now, through research and hindsight and sharing our experience with people who have had similar experiences, we’ve learned that what we were experiencing was a shock response. You know when people say: “The shock wouldn’t have hit them yet?” It’s said in such a blasé way but it was so much more than that. I actually thought I was having some sort of a breakdown. I was hiding in shops feeling sick, not being able to face people so having some sort of understanding as to why I was behaving in that way would have been really helpful.
They say grief feels a lot like fear, and that quote was one of the first things that resonated with me when I was trying to get help online. I thought, ‘Okay, this is normal what I am feeling here’ — and it just went from there. Quotes were a huge thing and I discovered that Instagram and Pinterest are a hive of inspirational quotes.
When I discovered there were grief-related ones, I was binging on them. Then, when I was expecting my baby in 2019/2020, we weren’t able to do antenatal classes because of lockdown so we had to do online versions with webinars and modules that you dipped in and out of. This amazing midwife took us through it step by step and it felt amazing to be looked after.
It was three years after Triona’s death and it struck me that something like this would have been helpful when we were going through the horror show of grief. I don’t think it would have made it any easier but I think I would have understood a lot more and not experienced as much fear and anxiety. Plus, we always wanted to do something in Triona’s name. That’s a big part of the grief process — families want to feel like their loved one has a legacy.
We discovered that when a bereaved sibling looks for help online there is nothing for them. There are resources for people who have lost parents, children, partners, even pets — but nothing on sibling grief. And because there is nothing, you can feel that your grief isn’t valid.
We didn’t want anyone else to feel like they didn’t have a right to be grieving, when just putting on your socks in the morning can feel like an achievement. So we founded the Sibling Grief Club in July 2021. We developed a webinar series with loads of resources. It’s developed by professionals because we’re not professionals. We’re professional grievers!
There were people getting in touch, saying: “Oh my god, I think you’re inside my head, you just posted something today that I was thinking about yesterday.” And it made me realise, ‘This is not me being a drama queen, this is needed’, and I just felt so glad that I had done it. What I think makes sibling grief worthy of attention, research and a dedicated space within the grief community is the fact that it’s a completely unique relationship. We have the same DNA, we are essentially part of the same fabric. Your siblings are a part of you, they are there from the very beginning and you fully expect them to be there until the end.
And childhood memories are huge in our development and who we become. It’s where you hone your life skills and your emotional intelligence and coping mechanisms. Your siblings teach you all that, obviously alongside your parents, but they’re a massive part of it.
And I find it really difficult that those memories shared between me and Triona are gone. Unless one of the other girls was there, I have nobody else to talk with about these memories. When she is the only person who can clarify a memory, those memories we shared are essentially gone.
‘We’re now five and a half years into what they call the grief journey and life has been completely transformed’
I’m really glad there’s an online space for sibling grief now. I’m not saying other types of loss are any less significant, but siblings need the same level of support as other relations do. And I’m not saying the coping skills we share will make losing someone any less horrific — it’s still going to hurt like hell — but the techniques can help. For example, the breathing exercises really helped me.
We’re now five and a half years into what they call the grief journey and life has been completely transformed. In the beginning you have a yearning for life to go back to normal, but life is never going to go back to normal, because she’s not in it. So you have to adapt.
I’m not going to lie, life is a lot harder now. It’s a long journey to reach the point where you can be happy and sad at the same time. And I think that’s the best you can hope for when you lose someone you love. It’s not to say you’re never going to be happy again but every occasion, every song, every memory, every family event is always tinged with a wee bit of sadness. I will grieve for Triona and miss her for the rest of my life so it’s learning to live a different life alongside that.
Find out more about the Sibling Grief Club at siblinggriefclub.com
