Surviving Siblings Summit Experience

It was my second time attending. This year's slogan felt exactly right: 

"We're not moving on. We're just moving differently."

That simple statement seemed to echo throughout the entire conference.

Session after session on anger, on joy, on legacy, on identity, all circled the same truth: grief doesn't end, it changes shape. You learn to carry it. 

The day opened with movement and closed with breathwork, reminding us that grief lives in the body just as much as the mind.

The schedule featured authors and advocates who keep showing up to give back, including Earla Dawn Legault, whose creativity-based session on processing loss felt right in line with her book, Living With Sibling Grief: Imagining a Way Forward, and Jen Hoye's guided journaling workshop, Not Moving On — Moving With. Which got me thinking, again, about words and how writing has always been one of the ways humans reach toward what feels unreachable, or what often feels impossible to say.

Did you know the original Thesaurus was born from grief? Peter Mark Roget began organizing words as a boy to bring order to chaos after losing his father. Years later, after losing his wife, he did it again and what emerged wasn't just a synonym guide, but a map of meaning. A way of saying: I know what I'm trying to express, even when I can't find the words.

That's what these authors and speakers do. They are giving language to experiences that can feel impossible to describe. And when it comes from the heart like this, it always finds another heart to touch.

Resources: The following authors, organizations, and speakers were featured at or connected with this year’s Surviving Sibling Summit:

• Maya Roffler - https://www.thesurvivingsiblings.com/

• Audree Thurman - https://sibsforever.net/ 

• https://www.onlineresources.org/

• Judy Lipson - https://www.judylipson.org/ 

• Author of: “Celebration of Sisters It is Never Too Late To Grieve”

• Heather Taylor, Grief Guide - https://www.soulglowandalchemy.com/

• Lenny Hunt - https://lennyhuntcoaching.com/

• Jen Hoye - https://www.jenniferhoye.com/, Author of “Thick Thighs, Tattoos & Breaking Taboos: How I Lost My Brother and Found Myself Again Through Running and Advocacy”

• https://www.bottlesforbill.org/

• Laing Rikkers - Author of: “Morning Leaves: Cultivating a Life of Beauty, Meaning, and Joy https://www.laingrikkers.com/

• Earla Dawn Legault - Author of: ‘Living With Sibling Grief: Imagining a Way Forward”, https://linktr.ee/siblinggrief

• Michelle Tobin - Author of: “Home for the Bewildered”, https://www.michelle-tobin.com/

• CJ Rae - Ashes in Full Bloom, https://cjrae.com/