The uniqueness of twin loss and grief

Loss of a twin unexpectedly in adulthood can leave the remaining twin feeling lost, devastated, and empty. The surviving twin can question the normalcy of these feelings and their response to the grief experience as compared to other losses. A literature review on adult twin loss followed by a review on sibling loss produced a sparse amount of information relevant to my questions. Both reviews centered around losses in childhood with little evidence of support for losses during adulthood. Guidance to assist with coping after this type of loss did not reveal specific coping strategies for the twinless twin. The coping strategies identified may be valuable for any person in their grieving process. The unique loss may benefit from future research on the most effective coping strategies. Grief therapists need further resources specific to singleton grief. Further research and clinical work would improve grief experiences during adult twin loss.

Sibling Death in the Family and Dementia Risk

Growing evidence points to the role of stress in contributing to dementia risk, and experiencing the death of a family member is a particularly stressful life event. Sibling relationships are typically life-long relationships and the death of a sibling is likely to be a stressful event in the life course; however, there is little research illuminating the possible consequences of sibling loss for dementia risk. This study considers whether experiencing the death of a sibling before midlife is associated with subsequent dementia risk and how such losses, which are more common for Black and Hispanic than for White populations, may add to racial/ethnic disparities in dementia risk. We use discrete-time event history models to predict dementia incidence among 9,590 non-Hispanic white, 1,669 non-Hispanic black, and 1,109 Hispanic respondents from the Health and Retirement Study, 2000-2014. Losing a sibling during the observation period is associated with increased risk for later dementia. The death of a sibling is robust to the inclusion of a variety of biosocial factors that contribute to subsequent dementia risk. The death of a sibling is a life course event with consequences that appear to increase dementia risk for Black and Hispanic older adults, and this increased risk is explained by biosocial processes likely activated by bereavement. However, Black and Hispanic Americans are further disadvantaged in that they are more likely than White Americans to experience the death of a sibling, and such losses add to the already substantial racial disadvantage in dementia risk.

“Real Loyalties”

This chapter explores the themes of sibling love and loss in the context of war in The Voyage Out and Night and Day. Taking its cue from Juliet Mitchell’s claim that lateral kin relations are both significant and under threat in time of war, the chapter aligns Woolf’s thinking about siblings with relevant ideas of lateral kinship. Disruptions to lateral relationships are increased in war-time, and such experiences of loss and love are pivotal in Woolf’s early novels. The Voyage Out takes the war-time tragedy Antigone as a central intertext and in so doing emphasises the topicality of ruptured sibling relations. Prior to its political resonance in Three Guineas, Antigone facilitated Woolf’s treatment of sibling loss in her first novel. Highlighting siblings also allows for a reading of Night and Day as a war-time novel; the novel’s refusal to platform the war parallels the pacifism of Vanessa Bell, who the protagonist Katharine Hilbery is modelled on. The placing of a strong female character, divorced from public social life, at the centre of the war-time novel is an early example of Woolf’s pacifism and her related resistance to patriarchy. Woolf’s first two novels are rarely associated with war, but this chapter demonstrates their sensitivity to central experiences in war—the losing, loving and othering one’s peers—and the necessity of acknowledging the important place of siblings in the origins of Woolf’s thinking about social and political life.

Expressions of Grief in Online Discussion Forums—Linguistic Similarities and Differences in Pet and Human Bereavement

We compared online discussion forum posts related to pet loss to those related to human bereavement. Posts ( N = 401) were analyzed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software for frequencies of word use relevant to bereavement. Words related to anger, sadness, and negative emotions were used at similar frequencies for all grief. Sibling loss was associated with using first person pronouns at higher frequencies, and positive emotion words at lower frequencies than other categories of loss. There were some similarities in partners and pets in the word use related to friends and social connectedness. Words related to religion were highest when writing about losing a child and lowest when losing a pet. Our results highlight the similarities in the vocabulary in pet and human bereavement. Findings demonstrate the importance of online discussion forums for understanding the process of grief and specific relationship types.