Category Archives: books

books, unresolved grief

Chelsea Handler Writes About Sibling Loss

Comedian, TV host, producer, and author Chelsea Handler wrote five best-selling books without mentioning that her beloved oldest brother, Chet, had died in a mountain-climbing accident when she was nine.  In her poignant new memoir, Life Will Be the Death of Me, she talks about that loss.

Although Chet was 13 years older, he and Chelsea had a special bond, and his death affected every part of her life.  Yet she buried her grief and pain deep inside for more than 30 years.  It was the shock of Donald Trump’s victory — she’d always been a staunch feminist and was certain Hillary Clinton would win — that caused her to feel intense despair about every aspect of her life.  She knew she needed to deal with those things that were causing her pain, and her brother’s death was at the top of the list. Continue reading Chelsea Handler Writes About Sibling Loss →

books, Support, unresolved grief

New Sibling-Loss Memoirs Worth Reading

In my memoir, Remembering Ruth, I devote a chapter to books written years ago that helped me cope with the loss of my sister.  Today I recommend two recently published memoirs that deal with the death of a young sibling.

Tragedy + Time, by comedian Adam Cayton-Holland, is about the suicide of his younger sister, Lydia, when she was 28 and he was 32.  (They have an older sister, Anna.) Lydia had threatened suicide many times before, and her siblings and their parents had desperately tried to help her.  One day Lydia sends them a “goodbye” email, and Adam races over to her apartment where he finds her dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Adam is tortured by his beloved sister’s death, compounded by his finding her body.  He walks around with a giant void inside. His world begins to improve once he starts seeing a therapist who specializes in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy (EMDR).  The technique, originally designed to treat soldiers with PTSD, has helped many other victims of severe trauma.  It is vital that he get past the horrendous experience of finding his sister’s body.  By going over that experience again and again in excruciating detail, he is slowly able to deal with the terrible event and her loss. Continue reading New Sibling-Loss Memoirs Worth Reading →

books, unresolved grief

Feeling Holden Caulfield’s Pain

During the years I was actively dealing with the loss of my sister, I began reading any book about sibling loss I could get my hands on.  One of the novels I devoured was The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.  I had read it in school, before Ruth died, and didn’t get it.  When I picked it up again years later — after I’d lost my sister, I could relate to what Holden was feeling and why.

“For bereaved siblings, reading Catcher is an aha moment,” I said in my memoir.  “Holden is doing what he’s doing and saying what he’s saying because he’s in extreme pain over the death of his beloved younger brother,  Allie, who died of leukemia four years earlier. Continue reading Feeling Holden Caulfield’s Pain →