Transcript for Writing Your Resilience Podcast Episode 44
The Loneliness of Sibling Loss with Lynn Shattuck and Alyson Shelton 

Most people expect their siblings to age alongside them. What happens when death cuts that relationship short? How do live with this grief that until recently went largely unacknowledged.  Join Alyson Shelton, Lynn Shattuck, and me as we kick off Worldwide Bereaved Sibling Month with a roundtable discussion about sibling loss, the challenges of living with disenfranchised grief, and how writing has helped us heal and maintain a relationship with our siblings even though they are gone on this week's episode of the writing your resilience podcast. Let's Dive In!

Lisa Ellison [0:00]:
Well, hello, Lynn and Alyson. Welcome to the Writing Your Resilience podcast. I am so honored and happy to have you on today.

Alyson [0:09]:
Well, thank you for having us. I’m thrilled to be sitting down talking with the two of you.

Lisa Ellison [0:15]:
We are meeting for a very important and auspicious occasion. This is the launch of Sibling Loss Month, which will start in November. This is airing on October 31, so the day before. Today, we’re going to take time to honor something that most people experience alone, which is sibling loss and sibling loss grief.

 So, to begin, we’re going to start with a ritual that we all came up with. The first thing we’re going to do is we all have a candle. Hold up your candle. For those watching on YouTube, you can hold it up like this. If you have a mental candle, that’s what you have, Lynn, and that’s great. So, if you’re listening, you can have your mental candle too, right?

 We have our candles. I’m going to light mine, and Lynn, you’re lighting yours in your imagination. I’m going to use my waterproof matches that take a bunch of tries. Yes, and we’re just going to take a moment to share our siblings' names. I’ll begin: Joe Cooper. He was 20 years old, and he died in 1997. Lynn, you may go next.

Lynn [1:49]:
I’m lighting this candle for my brother, Will Shattuck. He died in 1999 at the age of 21.

Alyson [2:00]:
I’m holding this candle for my brother, Michael, who died in 1984. I’ve written in places that he was 26, but he was 25. He hadn’t reached his 26th birthday, which speaks to something I’ll probably talk about later—about how my grief has changed over time. I’m just happy to be here and acknowledge all of them, all our brothers.

Lisa Ellison [2:28]:
I’m grateful that you’re both here to talk about this important issue, because, as I said earlier, most people experience sibling loss alone. It’s something that hasn’t really been acknowledged in our society, even though it’s one of the most common losses people face. A commonality for all of us is that we were at different ages when we lost our siblings, but all our siblings were in their 20s.

You know, it’s considered very young to die, an unexpected death. For many people listening, it doesn’t really matter how your sibling dies—grief is grief—but sometimes grief gets interpreted differently based on the age of the person who passed. I think that’s unfair, because you could be in your 50s or 60s and lose your sibling, and sometimes those losses are the least acknowledged because it’s expected. You know, it’s more normalized, like, “Oh, of course, you’re going to lose your sibling at that age.” But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

I want to ask each of you to share one word that you would use to describe grief, and then tell me how you both met.

Lynn [3:39]:
My word is lonely, which you alluded to earlier.

Alyson [3:46]:
I would say hidden. Lynn and I connected through social media during the pandemic. I was reading some of her writing, a lot of it about Will, and Lynn wrote about things that made me think, “Oh, wow. Me too.” These feelings I had buried because I didn’t feel like there was a lot of space for my grief—probably for a week, maybe a month, but not much longer.
And for any of our grief, it just wasn’t part of the conversation. There was a lot going on in our family, and I felt like I couldn’t let it go. That became my role in the family—the person who’s like a dog with a bone, not able to let anything go. So, it was just another thing I couldn’t let go.

When I started reading Lynn’s writing, it was validating because I felt like it was okay to not let it go. It’s okay to still grieve the life we weren’t able to share. I still have a relationship with him, but it’s very different than if he were alive. Lynn’s writing opened a door for me to consider all of this and helped me make space for the parts of my grief I had been in denial about or felt shame over.

That’s why I’ve written that he was 26, because what I remembered was that I was 10, and it was the summer of 1984. But we didn’t talk about the details very much. It just wasn’t something we engaged with.

Lisa Ellison [6:01]:
And when it’s silenced, it creates a situation where you feel like you have to keep it silent. I think that buries it further.

Alyson [6:15]:
Definitely. I felt like in the hierarchy of grief—which is something we’ve talked about in other calls—siblings are very low on that hierarchy. I was the only half-sibling, the youngest, and the only girl in a family of five children, so I felt like I was in the basement of that hierarchy. Even if I wanted to articulate what I was feeling, I was quickly shut down with, “He’s your half-brother. You’ve got more brothers. What does it really mean to you anyway?”

Even though I was raised with him, I never thought of him as my half-brother until after he died. That’s when the term took on meaning for me. It was a moment where I realized I wasn’t fully part of the family—not just because I was a girl, but because I was the half-sibling.

Being 10, it was a watershed moment. I couldn’t unpack or understand all of it at the time, so I just put it away.

Lisa Ellison [7:33]:
Yeah. At 10 years old, you’re just at the point where you can understand what death really is developmentally, but how do you wrap your mind around it? We don’t have those capacities. If no one is holding space for you, and you’re feeling “othered,” it just compounds everything.

You talked about that hierarchy of grief, where siblings are low. For all the reasons you mentioned, you felt like you were in the basement—maybe even not on the ladder at all. The farther you are from the ladder, the more you’re experiencing what we call disenfranchised grief.

Lynn, you and I met because we both share sibling loss, and I’ve learned so much about Will. You’re on a mission to make us not feel alone, which is something I love about you. Can you tell us a little bit about how sibling loss is a form of disenfranchised grief?

Lynn [8:53]:
Sure. A harder question to answer would be why it’s disenfranchised, because it doesn’t really make sense. My experience in 1999 after my brother died was that at his celebration of life, person after person came up to me and said the same thing, like they were reading from a script: “Be strong for your parents.”

Then I went home and researched online, at Amazon.com, which was new at the time, and there were literally no books on sibling loss. There was one, and it was out of print. I’ve said this before, but there were more books on losing a pet turtle than on losing a brother or sister.

It doesn’t make sense. There aren’t enough resources, books, or research. Yet the sibling relationship is the longest we expect to have, and, in some ways, the most unique. No one else knows you when you’re a child. Childhood is almost like its own universe, and losing the person you shared that experience with is significant.

Lisa Ellison [10:06]:
I love how you said childhood is its own landscape, and this is the only person who’s traversed it with you. Regardless of your experience with your family of origin, having someone else validate it—whether it was great or not—can be powerful. Those secret memories that no one else knows about, you two knew.

I’ve heard it said that sibling loss is like losing a limb you expect to keep all your life. It sounds like, at various times, we’ve had this loss and developed a different relationship with our siblings. One thing that has affected all of us and changed that relationship is writing.

Can you both talk about how writing has changed your relationship with your sibling? Whether it’s brought you closer or made things make more sense, tell us how writing has been a part of your healing process and your connection. Alyson, you go first.

Alyson [11:34]: 
Well, I think for me, it's definitely made our relationship more tangible and less just in my mind. I've talked about this at other times, but I'll share: I've posted about Michael online, and people will say, "I'm sorry for your loss," or respond in some way to my post. And those posts, along with being part of the sibling loss community, have brought the most acknowledgment I've ever received for that loss. My first instinct is to say, "Oh, don't worry," or "Thanks, he's been dead a long time." But I think writing about it and sharing my writing has been a gentle push for me to acknowledge what his loss has meant to my life. It's helped me begin to understand what a difference it's made.

There was a big push to be like, "Okay, now there are four of us instead of five," as if we should just tighten the circle and move on. But now I’m reconfiguring it, acknowledging that it was five, and processing how that makes me feel now. Writing about the memories and taking them seriously has been really important for me. It's helped me take it seriously.

Lisa Ellison [13:27]:
What about you, Lynn? 

Lynn [13:30]:
For me, my experience was different. I had an urge to start writing letters to my brother within days of his death. My mom and I both started doing that— it felt almost like a compulsion. It did a bunch of different things for me. It helped me process my feelings. At the time, I didn't really know how to sit with my feelings. I didn’t know how to be with them. It sounds silly, but it was a new concept for me.

So, sitting down to write to my brother felt like it maintained our connection. It gave me this direct line to him and allowed my feelings to come out. I would feel emotions building up in my body, that tight, constricted feeling, and writing those letters helped me express them.

Another unexpected benefit was that it helped me capture memories I wouldn't have otherwise. In my experience with early grief, memories would just surface, like "breaching" memories. When I look back at those letters now, I realize I don’t remember those memories anymore, but I have them written down.

Lisa Ellison [14:56]:
I love that practice— it’s such a beautiful practice. And if you're listening, and your grief is young or fresh, what I often tell people is that it's fresh and young for a lot longer than you think. One to five years is still young grief. Losing a sibling doesn’t just go away, and it’s important to acknowledge that. Society often tells you to get over it fast. You get three days for the funeral, and maybe a month, if they say, "Take all the time you need." But really, it takes years to process this.

In both of your experiences, Alyson, your family reconfigured as if your brother wasn’t there. So, there’s this sense of a ghost outside of the family picture. In your case, Lynn, you brought your brother in, and he played this big role. In my family, it was different. I felt like a ghost in my family after my brother’s death. He played an outsized role in his death, and that pain loomed large. Yet in life, he was the quiet one, the least acknowledged of the three of us, but suddenly, in death, he was always in the forefront. I understand why, but it was an interesting dynamic.

Writing helped me get close to my brother in ways I wasn’t able to during his life, and it also helped me get closer to myself. Writing, as a practice, is often done alone, but that’s not always the best way to write— and it’s not always the best way to grieve. You’ve both been working hard to build a community to support people in grief. Can you tell us about that community and how it’s going?

Alyson [17:33]: 
Yes! Well, originally, I reached out to Lynn about her writing, and we started chatting. She was working on an anthology, and we decided to collaborate on it, because it’s a big lift to do alone. Then we connected with Molly. Her mother is Margo--Margo had created a grief community after losing her son, Jimmy, to cancer. Molly and I started chatting, and then the three of us connected. We began having conversations with other siblings like you, and it felt incredibly healing and validating.

Lynn engages with almost everyone who responds to her writing, but you can’t do that forever. So, we started talking about how we could grow this community and reach more people. That’s when Molly designed our website, which we’re so happy about. It’s a landing place where people can find resources and just feel seen.

Something that came up in those early conversations was the "hierarchy of grief." In larger grief communities, siblings are often treated as afterthoughts. So, this space is just for siblings— no need to qualify your loss or downplay it. Siblings often feel like their grief isn’t important, so we wanted to create a place where we are the focus.

We’ve also started a book club, which has been great for connecting on Zoom and interacting. Jenny Burke suggested we create an "In Memory" page where people can share pictures of their siblings and write details about them. It’s really powerful to say their names. So often, I just say "my brother," but I don’t say, "my brother Michael." I try to make it small, but this space allows us not to be small.

Lisa Ellison [20:46]:
 I think that's absolutely beautiful. And it's so important for us to have these spaces where our grief is acknowledged, where we are, number one, in this experience. What I love about this community is that it's built on connection. Yes, we are experiencing our grief, and we are acknowledging it. We are saying our siblings' names. However, because there's a book club and there are all these other things, there's a structure that is different from, say, a grief community. If you're going to something like Compassionate Friends, which is a great organization, they now have a group for sibling loss. That was different when I first lost my brother in 1997. My mom and dad went to Compassionate Friends and invited me, but it was filled with a bunch of parents. I remember people nodding their heads, and I felt like an outcast, like I didn't belong. That actually magnified the fact that my grief didn't matter. 

But having this structured way to communicate, to say names, and all these other things is such a beautiful thing. If you're listening and you have lost a sibling, regardless of the amount of time that has passed or how old you are—you could be 89 years old or 100 years old—you just lost your sibling, please contact Lynn and Alyson and add your sibling’s name and photo to the memorial page. Let us say their name and let their name be out there.

So that leads me to the anthology, because there's the website, which is gorgeous, yes, and all the resources. One of the resources that you’ve been working on is this anthology about sibling loss. Can you tell us a little about what you are doing and the goal of this project? 

Lynn [22:47]:
 The anthology was something I thought about even in the early months after my brother died, and the fact that there weren't resources. So, it kind of lived in my brain for a long while—it's been 25 years. I kind of thought somebody else was going to do it at some point along the way. I found that's kind of a lazy answer, but it's the truth. There are more resources now, and we're connecting with those who are making them, but there’s still a lack of it. Having this project with Alyson, I think the word I wrote down is "sacred." As the essays have started to roll in, it’s this connection—this shared language—with other people who have lost siblings. These are people with different experiences, different time frames, each unique from my loss, different from your losses. Yet, there's this shared theme. One of the essays talks about the shared language of being a sibling, and how their mom used to make quiches. She was on this quiche streak forever, and how they would laugh about that and share that. Although that's not my story—I don't think my mom made quiches—I could understand and feel that connection and that shared language. It’s not a replacement for the shared language we had with our siblings, but it’s something kind of adjacent to that. I’ve been incredibly grateful for it. We've also had a few people with higher profiles, like Gregory Orr, who wrote The Blessing. People always say yes when we ask them to include their essays in our anthology. That has also been very inspiring and reaffirming—that we’re doing something important. These people, who have Guggenheim fellowships and such, they know it's important too.

Lisa Ellison [24:57]:
Yeah, and Gregory Orr is here in Charlottesville, Virginia, because he teaches at UVA. So, yeah, great connection. I'm curious to know if any themes are coming up now that these essays are coming in. Are you noticing any themes or any shorthand that's showing up? Either one of you can answer this question—was there anything surprising, like, "Oh yeah, look, this is showing up in a lot of different places," or "Oh yeah, I totally get that, and I never would have thought of it before?"

Alyson [25:33]:
For me, it's not something I have thought of, but my essay is about it. I think we've noticed that, especially for those of us who’ve had a long-standing relationship, pretty much across the board, everyone still feels like they're in a relationship with their siblings and that they are a presence in their lives. I kind of thought, "Well, maybe I'm just alone in this." I don't know; maybe this is woo, or whatever, but it doesn't seem to be that way. It doesn’t seem to matter what your background is or what your faith is; you're in conversation with your sibling, and when you're writing about them, they're there—they're present and feeling seen. It helps me when I'm talking about death with my kids. When they are concerned about what happens next, I don’t know what happens next, but all these people I know also know it’s not nothing, and that helps me.

Lisa Ellison [26:45]:
I love that.

Lynn [26:47]: 
I would say another thing that I'm connecting to right now is the way that grief doesn’t really abide by time in a linear way, the way that we want it to, or the way that our calendars would have others believe. Several people have mentioned that in their essays. One woman who lost her sister 50 years ago writes that, as she’s at the end of her life, her sister is almost more present because she’s reflecting on her life. I can go through days, weeks, or months without having acute grief, and then something happens, and I can go right back to that place of, "I can't believe that he's really gone." Yes, yeah. I think just the endurance of grief over time, which is just, as people say, the endurance of love. It's really the same thing. That person isn’t physically present anymore.

Lisa Ellison [28:18]:
Yeah, I love that idea of the endurance of grief as the endurance of love. And isn’t it an endurance race? I mean, it’s kind of a slow little amble. It's not necessarily a race, but there is an endurance component to it because it doesn’t go away. You don’t always know when it’s going to come. It’s not always as acutely painful as it was at the beginning, but there is a relentless nature to it. It shows up when it wants to show up.

Alyson [28:39]: 
And it affects the way you see the world. I think that’s something too. As we are in conversation with other siblings and each other, you see like, “Oh, this is something that’s not unique.” The way that it changed—I’m just not a person who assumes everything will go well, and that’s okay.

Lisa Ellison [29:32]:
Yeah, I think it does change your worldview, because that worldview been popped. We all begin the world with some level of worldview that the world is predictable, the world is safe, and that people are predictable. We know what’s going to happen. We all have to have some level of that worldview to operate; it’s just a necessary thing. But when you lose a sibling, especially when you lose a sibling young or in a way that is unexpected or tragic, it shifts. You might redevelop some semblance of the world being safe enough or predictable enough to keep going. You must do that work, but there is always this thing in the back of your mind, saying, “Well, I also know the worst thing can happen.”

Alyson [30:12]:
Yeah, I think the fragility of life is something that I live with. I don’t think it’s a curse; I think it’s a blessing. I’m very grateful for the blessings in my life every day, and that I’m here, and my loved ones are here. I’m just kind of filled with awe. I mean, I can’t believe—and I think this happens with a lot of siblings too—I can’t believe I’m 50 years old. I never thought I would be 50 years old. It’s just stunning to me, and I feel that way a lot about my life.

Lisa Ellison [30:12]:
And we are the 50s club! Alyson, she was inducted first; I was recently inducted, and Lynn, she is on the cusp.

Lynn [30:23]:
Next week, by the time this airs I’ll be fifty and a half. 

Lisa Ellison [30:28]:
Oh my gosh. I don’t even want to think about being 50 and a half! Let’s just say we’re 50 and time stops—the end. Then we get to be 50 forever, and you know, that’s a great age to be! Yeah, just hold on to that. And that’s it. With a lot of episodes, I ask people about who they are professionally in the opening. I didn’t this time, because I think the purpose of this episode is different. It was important to establish who we are as people who’ve lost siblings. But I want to backtrack and give you both an opportunity to say a little about who you are as writers, because you don’t just write in your journals; you are actively writing and publishing your work.

Alyson [31:26]:
 Sure, I write across all mediums and genres. I've written films; I've made a film. I've written comic books about sibling loss. I write essays, and I have a memoir that I'm editing right now, inspired by my Where I'm From poem. I host Where I'm From on Instagram Live, and by the time this airs, I’ll have, I don’t know, 160 or 170 guests or something like that. People come and share their Where I'm From poems, inspired by the George Ella Lyon poem. It’s interesting, Lynn, when you said the landscape of childhood and how we don’t have that shared language with people like we do with our siblings. I am a person who's always been interested in people's childhoods, and it makes sense that I'm doing this now because every week, I get to listen to someone's reflections and these pieces of themselves that they don’t really share anymore. We sort of put our childhoods away, and that’s been a real gift to me: to make space for that in my life and to also take my own formative years seriously, which is another thing I felt like I should let go of. It’s helped me realize, “Oh no, it’s important.”

Lisa Ellison [32:52]:
 I love that. Also, for those of you who are listening and you’re like, “I want to know more about this Where I'm From poem,” I'm going to make sure that the link is in the show notes, because you might decide that you want to pitch a poem to Alyson.

Alyson [33:05]:
 Please do! Both Lynn and Lisa have joined me, as well as many others, and everyone is welcome.

Lisa Ellison [33:13]:
 So, Lynn, what about you? Tell us about yourself as a writer.

Lynn [33:18]:
 I guess I would say that I write about the hard things. I write about things that I hope will help people feel less lonely. For me, that’s been sibling loss, depression, anxiety—all kinds of fun mental health challenges. Parenting, you know, being a sensitive human in a prickly world. It feels like a prickly world, yeah. I’ve written for Elephant Journal for quite a long time now; that’s one of the places where I’ve written quite a bit.

Lisa Ellison [33:47]:
 And their work is equally beautiful. I’m going to ask you both to pick one essay that you’ve written that you would like to be in the show notes so that people can get a taste of your writing. So, speaking of writing—because this is a podcast where we talk a lot about it—I’m curious to know: What is the best piece of writing advice that you’ve ever received?

Alyson [34:10]:
 I love this question, and I was thinking about it. I would say that early on in my writing life, the best writing advice I received was to prioritize quality: just sit down and write. You can revise; you can edit. Just get out of your own way, get your butt in the chair, and write. My writing teacher said to put that on your monitor, and whenever you're doubting yourself, look at it. Then, later, it was actually in Where I'm From, Palma to Nino, where we were talking about writing, and we discussed how nothing is wasted. I think that's another thing to continue to encourage you to write. Nothing's wasted. It doesn't matter if this is published; it all counts, and it all helps you grow. Go and figure out what you're trying to say. As I've gotten older, this perspective has affected my life and how I view my experiences, my life, and myself.

Lisa Ellison [35:12]:
 I love that.

Lynn [35:14]:
 Mine is—so I think I've shared this story with Alyson, but I'm not sure I have with you, Lisa. This was maybe six months after my brother died, and my mom and I were seeing a play in Washington, DC. My aunt was a theater director there for many years, and she went to school with Paula Vogel, who wrote How I Learned to Drive. So, this was a Paula Vogel play. Afterwards, we went back and got to say hi to her because she had been generous enough to read some of my writing at an earlier time. She had also lost a brother, and there was this shared understanding in the air between us. She said, “Are you writing?” I said, “Yes.” And she said, “Cling to it.” That makes so much sense coming from her. 

Lisa Ellison [36:07]:
 I think we all have been clinging to it. It's been such an important piece of our lives. And yet, when it comes to sibling loss, whether you are writing in a journal just for yourself—which I highly recommend you do if you're listening and you're like, “Oh, I don’t want to publish anything,” you do not have to—it is always helpful to write about these things. Writing about grief and the tough stuff is a bit of work; you know, it requires our energy, and it can feel depleting. So how do you nurture your resilience as you do this work, as writers and as you build this community?

Alyson [36:43]:
 I make sure to take care of myself. I take walks, I meditate, I try to sleep and eat good food. I’ve also realized that I have to take off any real pressure—like that I need to finish it by this time or submit it this many times. I went through a phase during the pandemic where I wanted to get 100 rejections. That was something I put in my mind that I wanted to do. I did that, and I’m grateful I did; it changed my relationship to rejection. Other than that, I just have to give myself a break and know that I want this to be a marathon, not a sprint. I don’t want to exact too high a cost from myself; it’s not a cost I’m interested in paying because this is so important to me. I want it to continue to be a part of my life.

Lisa Ellison [37:47]:
 Yeah, I love that. I'm going to say two things, and then I'm going to turn it over to you, Lynn. One, I think for many people who are writing about grief, there is a preciousness to the writing process because we get to hold on to the people we love and have lost, and they get to be very alive. When we send our manuscripts out into the world and say, “the end,” you know, when the project is over, there is another layer of letting go that has to happen. Allowing for the amount of time you need to do that work is really important. The other thing I’ll say is that, if we’re thinking from a book perspective, we’re probably only going to write one book about this experience. Giving yourself time to get it right, I really understand what that means for you. How you make sense of it is so important. I think that’s another reason why it’s good to let it be a marathon rather than a sprint.

 So many writers—whether they’re writing about loss or love or anything else, it doesn’t matter—they want it to be a sprint because they want to hold the book in their hands. I get that; I do. I’m a writer myself. We get tired of our projects; we don’t want to revise again, and we see all kinds of things happening on social media that can make it feel like the sprint is important and that we are behind if we have not accomplished this goal. The reality is, you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your sibling, you owe it to your story to just take the time that it needs. So, Lynn, how are you nurturing your resilience?

Lynn [39:30]:
 That’s something I’ve been working on. For me, it’s been a lot of just renovation; I need to take care of my nervous system. It’s pretty easy to be dysregulated these days at this particular stage of my life and this particular stage of history. So, I’m really working on slowing down, making sure that I take time to do things that are restorative, like being outside in nature. Another practice I’ve started is just kind of savoring—writing down these moments with, you know, my kids are 12 and 15 now, and time is going fast with them. If I don’t write it down, it leaves because my brain is, you know, my brain is almost 50. I’m pretty sure many of us have less attention span and less kind of capacity to build memories than we did in earlier times, before technology. Maybe because I write so much about hard stuff and intense stuff—and I’m kind of an intensity junkie—there’s something really nice about sitting down and capturing a moment, like when my daughter and I went to watch a sunset or look for the Northern Lights. We didn’t find them, but it was fun anyway.

Lisa Ellison [40:41]:
 Yeah, I love that, and I think that's really important to have that sense of balance, because many of us are drawn to write about these experiences because they were hard. We may feel very connected to the challenging pieces because they feel really big inside us. So, we get going on the writing, but it's the small, wonderful things about life that, capturing them and writing about them, does help with the nervous system. I recently read a quote that said, “Healing happens in slowness.” If you keep going or you treat your nervous system in the same way you do in your dysregulated life, you will not heal. So, if we want this to be a healing practice, and we want it to be an expansive practice—right?—creativity happens in a space of expansion. We have to learn how to go slow and savor the good stuff.

Well, you guys are both doing incredible work, individually and together. So, I'm going to ask you, first, individually, what is the best way for people to follow you online and connect with you? And we'll start with you, Alyson.

Alyson [41:48]:
 The best place is my website, Alysonshelton.com (A-L-Y-S-O-N, S-H-E-L-T-O-N dot com). If you're on Instagram, @byAlysonshelton is also good, because that's where you’ll see the Where I’m From interviews. But I also post them to YouTube, and I have a Substack too.

Lisa Ellison [42:06]
And I love how it all creates a brand, right? We have the name and the brand, something that I think all writers and creatives have to have, and yet we hate to have, but you have it.

Alyson [42:20]:
 Yes, and I think it sort of magically happened, which is how you hope it will. You can't sit—personally, I can't sit around and think, “What’s my brand?”

Lisa Ellison [42:32]:
 No, you’re writing. Your brand will not happen that way.

Alyson [42:35]:
 It must happen organically, I think, in order for it to be sustainable. 

Lisa Ellison [42:42]:
 Lynn, individually, what are the best ways for people to connect with you?

Lynn [42:45]:
 I use social media or email. I do have a website that I believe is not working very well at the moment, but I think we didn't mention our website is lossofalifetime.com, so that's our sibling loss website. lossofalifetime.com, and that’s to kind of acknowledge and affirm the fact that it is significant, and it is important loss.

Lisa Ellison [43:10]:
 And so if you missed that, all of this will be in the show notes. So, fear not. You can connect individually with Alyson or Lynn, or you can connect with the sibling loss community, which I hope that you do.

Well, it has been an absolute joy and pleasure to spend time with you. I mean, we've been together many times, but I can't wait for the day when we're all in the same place live IRL, because most of our interactions have been online. But thank goodness for programs like Zoom. You know, that was one of the great things about the pandemic. We got something like this to help us be able to connect.

And so, as we wrap up, I want to just offer one more time to say your sibling's name, hold up your handle or candle, whichever you have, and that is how we will wrap up. And then I will ring the bell. In advance of our final ceremony, I will say thank you to both of you. So, Joe Cooper, he lived for 20 years.

Alyson [44:14]:
 Michael, he lived to be 25.

Lynn [44:18]: 

My brother Will was 21.

Lisa Ellison [44:21]:
 And I'll ring the bell just in honor of them and all siblings who have lost siblings. We see you; we hear you, we understand your loss, and we hope that you feel held by this space.