The Grief Nobody Talks About: Losing a Brother or Sister

On Valentine's Day in 2014, Susan Casey received the news that would change her life. Her brother Rocky, born Brian, had died suddenly in Hong Kong. He was forty-three years old, and he left behind a wife and a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

What followed was a whirlwind: an emotional three-week trip to Asia, the shock of a loss no one saw coming, and then the return home, where the full weight of her grief was waiting. Rock On: Mining for Joy in the Deep River of Sibling Grief is Casey's moving account of that loss, and of her long journey toward hope and reclaimed joy.

Sibling grief is one of the most overlooked forms of loss. When someone loses a parent, a child, or a spouse, the people around them usually understand the depth of that loss and know how to offer support. But when someone loses a brother or sister, especially as an adult, the grief is often underestimated. Condolences may flow mostly to the parents or the spouse, while the grieving sibling is quietly expected to be strong and supportive. Grief researchers have a name for losses like this. Back in 1989, grief expert Kenneth Doka introduced the term "disenfranchised grief" to describe grief that isn't fully recognized or supported by society. Many bereaved siblings know that feeling intimately, even if they've never heard the term.

And yet, the loss of a sibling can be profound. Siblings are often our longest relationships. They share our childhoods, our family history, our inside jokes, and our memories of parents and grandparents. When a sibling dies, we lose not only the person, but also a piece of our own past and the future we imagined sharing with them.

What makes Rock On so special is how Casey chose to heal. In her search for a way forward, she began interviewing people around the world who had also lost a sibling. Brothers and sisters shared their stories with remarkable vulnerability and honesty, and those conversations gradually helped guide her out of the deepest waters of her grief. As she listened, a deeper healing took place, strengthening her belief that loving and losing is far greater than never loving at all.

Those stories are woven throughout the book alongside Casey's own memories of Rocky. The result is both a memoir and a chorus of voices, a collection that shows grieving siblings that their experience is shared by many others. Each chapter explores a particular aspect of grief and ends with insights intended to support readers on their own healing journeys. It's the kind of structure that makes the book both deeply personal and genuinely useful.

Casey brings unique expertise to this work. She is a writer and licensed mental health clinician with a master's in social work and an MFA, and her work focuses on trauma and loss. That combination of professional knowledge and lived experience gives the book both authority and heart. She understands grief not just from the outside, as a clinician, but from the inside, as a sister who lost her brother.

The title captures the book's spirit perfectly. It honors Rocky's memory while pointing toward something hopeful: the possibility of finding meaning, connection, and even joy after devastating loss. Casey never suggests that grief simply ends. Instead, she shows how love for a sibling continues, and how joy can slowly return alongside the sorrow.

Rock On is for anyone who has lost a brother or sister, for the friends and family who want to understand and support them, and for counselors and clinicians working with bereaved siblings. It's a compassionate reminder that this grief is real, that you are not alone, and that joy is still possible.

Rock On: Mining for Joy in the Deep River of Sibling Grief by Susan Casey is available now in paperback and hardcover.