Hi, welcome, I’m really happy you’re here.

I know a lot of people say that at the beginning of blog posts, and I’m sure they all mean it, but seriously — I’m so glad that you’re visiting the blog. I’ve been thinking about and planning for this moment for a really long time, so to have your eyes and your attention right now means a lot to me.

My big sister Alex was killed by a drunk driver in October of 2022. She was my only sibling and my best friend. She was also the only person in the world who fully understood me and made me feel seen. Throughout the last year, I have felt immense grief, sadness, fear, and anger, but the most debilitating symptom has been the loneliness. Alex was almost 4 years old when I was born, so for the first time in my entire life, I am walking through the world without her. And I feel so completely alone. Alone and invisible.

I’m not saying this to gain your pity or your sympathy — I’m only saying it because it’s the truth, and in this tiny corner of the internet, I’m going to try to be recklessly honest.

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I’ve been searching for a way to feel visible again — to feel fully understood and seen and known. Truthfully, this feels impossible to achieve without my big sister. But I’ve always been able to process my emotions and big life events more thoughtfully through the written word, so I’m hoping that this blog will be a good step in the right direction.

I’ve chosen the name ‘Dead Sibling Society’ for the blog, because I hope that we can build community here – community for all those who have lost siblings, or friends, or spouses, or children, or anyone at all. Or no one at all — maybe you’ve felt searing pain or grief without losing anyone. Or maybe you’ve never felt searing pain, but you’re just here to learn alongside us. This community is for everyone; we’re all on the same team here.

I have 3 main “goals” for the blog to share. My hope is that you will hold me accountable to doing these things for as long as we’re on this journey together.

1. This blog will be a safe space for you to come and rest — rest in the knowledge that you’re already enough, that you’re not alone, and that you’ve just barely begun to tap into the power you hold. That said, we’re here to unlock a more true and beautiful existence for ourselves and for our world, and that takes some serious work, so it will not be all sunshine and rainbows here. I want us to hold each other accountable to building better lives. So we’ll rest and we’ll encourage in this community, but we’ll also hold space for that accountability.
2. I will always be recklessly vulnerable with you, and I hope you’ll do the same. I say this all the time: I’m on a mission to elevate small talk to medium talk, and that’s because I know how life-changing it can be when we truly let each other in. At some point in your life, I bet you’ve answered the question how are you? with a simple good, you? when all you wanted to say was I’m actually not good at all, things are kind of falling apart. Can we sit down and talk about it? Well around here, we can always sit down and talk about it. There is always time. Every single time I’ve been asked this question since my sister died, I’ve lied and said I’m hanging in there, thanks, when in reality I am not hanging in there at all. But no more of that. I want us to go deep together, dig into the hardest parts of the human experience, and walk out the other side stronger.
3. The community we build here will carry no armor. To me, the opposite of authenticity is not fear or fraud — it’s armor. When someone is not able to demonstrate authenticity, I don’t think it’s because they are trying to be fake — I think it’s because they feel the need to check their insecurities and flaws at the door and put on an outer shell of who they think they’re supposed to be. And whether it’s in the workplace or in our friendships, it seems like everyone is armored up and ready for battle these days. Myself included! But not here. We will be brave, we will strip away our armor, and we will approach our relationships and coworkers and family and friends as our whole selves.

Life is hard. You’ll hear me say that all the time, and that’s because it’s true — life as a living, breathing human is full of challenges and obstacles and landmines. Losing my sister has made life even harder, and talking about the hard is the only thing I’ve ever found to make things easier. So together, we are going to build a community of people who can acknowledge how hard life is, talk about it out loud, and make the hard days feel easier. Because truth be told, there is a way out of the hard, but it is not over or around or under — it is only through.

I’ll leave you with one final thought for the day: we are all writing our individual chapters alongside each other in this life. While some of our stories may intertwine, most of us will write and write and write without ever crossing paths. That’s simply the nature of the world — when you consider the 7.5 billion people who are alive right now, we only have the capacity to intertwine our stories with a handful of them. Still, 7.5 billion stories are being written at desks right next to yours — 7.5 billion beautiful, complicated, joyful, painful stories. Right now at this moment, someone else is losing a sister. Someone is getting married. Someone is having a baby. Someone is facing a fear. Someone is losing a battle.

Let’s make a decision right now to be recklessly good to each other, because life is hard, and until it’s time to put our pens down, we’re all in the classroom scribbling as fast as we can. We’re all just… walking each other home.