I love this anonymous Hidden Grief submission — it's short, but incredibly representative of the sibling experience.
It's an age old trope, but when someone dies, the casseroles appear like clockwork. Friends and neighbors gather around the grieving family, dropping off meals, sending flowers, offering support. And often, those gestures are directed at the person who was closest to the one who died — the spouse, the child, the parent.
Grief doesn’t follow a hierarchy.
This cartoon came from someone whose brother died. They (likely) didn’t live with him. They didn’t share a mortgage or matching wedding bands. But they shared a childhood. Inside jokes. A whole life’s worth of “remember when?”
And when he died, they didn’t get a single casserole.
Sibling grief is often overlooked. It’s one of those “invisible losses” — very real, but rarely acknowledged in the way other grief is. Siblings are expected to be supportive, to help with logistics, to hold it together for everyone else. But not always to grieve.
People assume they’re okay.
But the truth is, losing a sibling is utterly devastating. It’s the loss of a co-witness to your life. A tether to your past. A partner in crime, in rivalry, in late-night texts and shared holidays. And when that person is gone, it changes everything.
This is what’s known as disenfranchised grief — a grief that isn’t widely recognized or validated. It happens to siblings, yes, but also to friends, coworkers, exes, caregivers, and others whose grief falls outside of what society tends to acknowledge.
If you’re supporting someone after a death, don’t assume you know who’s grieving the most. Grief doesn’t always follow the family tree.
The spouse will likely need support. But so might the sibling. So might the friend who considered them chosen family. So might the person who sat with them every week at dialysis, or the neighbor who saw them every day.
Good grief support is more than casseroles. But it can be an excellent place to start.
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