Grief is a universal experience, yet it manifests uniquely for each individual. In this episode, Nina Rodriguez delves into sibling grief and the often-unseen struggles of those who have lost a brother or sister. Nina discusses the challenges of navigating grief within a family dynamic, where parents may be consumed by their sorrow, and the importance of extending grace to one another. She highlights the unspoken truths of masking grief at work and in families, stressing the importance of open communication and acknowledging loss. Join us for an honest and heartfelt conversation about coping with grief, honoring the memory of loved ones, and finding healing in the face of unimaginable loss. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here Forever My Brother: A Journey Through Grief And Light With Nina Rodriguez   Hello, Nina. Welcome. Hello, Tina, and thank you so much. It’s an absolute honor to be here. I love your work, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here and with your audience. Thank you for that. I’m like, “Are you trying to get me to start crying?” We just said hello. I joked around that I make people cry for a living, in the best way. I want to explain to my audience and people this part of this conversation with us. When we chose the name Widowhood Real Talk with TinaI that name was intentional because even though this organization was birthed out of the passing of my late husband he was my husband when we look at the “hood,” because I’m from Chicago, “hood” means family to me. Being the widow in my hood means that Mark was someone’s brother. Mark was someone’s uncle. Mark was my children’s father. He was someone’s friend.     Every conversation that we have on widowhood is that conversation from who was impacted by the “hood.” Everybody is impacted differently. It could have been his health provider. It could have been his financial advisor or his lawyer. Even though the widow may be the person most visibly impacted, the person that she has lost had different relationships with other people outside of hers, and it’s always important to have a conversation from different perspectives of that person who is no longer here. Their life may be complete, but we are still going through the process of enduring our lives, living, and experiencing in their absence. The Symbolism Of A Butterfly I thank you for being open to having the conversation from your lived experience and in the things that you are doing in this journey, but I want to ask a couple of questions before we get into, maybe, the reason why we are going to talk. Tell me about the butterflies that are behind you, because I am just the blue one. Feel free to turn around. I want to go there. Tell me about those and how you came about them. I will tell you about them, but first, I want to acknowledge something you said that a loss has such a big ripple effect and profound effect on everybody who loved the person. Thank you for making space for these conversations. In my case, I didn’t lose. I’m not a widow yet, not anytime soon but I did lose my brother. He was my only sibling, and he was right behind me, right there. About the butterflies, those butterflies were a gift from my grandmother. She gave them to me when I was sixteen years old, and I have had them since. It’s not like I have a close tie to butterflies or anything like that, but I do to these because they are special. They’re something that she felt like she wanted to give me, and they remind me of her. That big one in particular I was moving, and I told my husband, “Be careful with that one,” and as soon as I said, “Be careful,” he dropped it. He was so mad, and I was like, “Of course you would.” In any case, I feel like it’s symbolic of life. Sometimes it’s a butterfly with a broken wing, and it’s still beautiful, and it still reminds me of my grandmother. I feel like it’s symbolic of her presence. They are beautiful, and I like having them around. I did not even notice that one was broken, and now that you said it but that the beauty did not become less and even paying I never saw that. We focus on Sometimes. Now that’s all I see because I’m looking now. Who is not functioning with some type of broken wing? I feel like that’s so symbolic of life, and that happened also after my brother’s passing. I said, “It feels real to what we are going through right now, very in line with what we are going through.” The Grief And Light Podcast Am I correct that you do a podcast also? Yes. I created and hosted the Grief and Light Podcast, similar to yours in that I like to give a voice to the griever’s experience. Initially, it started with me exploring my grief because, at the time so, he passed September 11, 2019, when I was looking for information, I didn’t find anything about sibling loss. Whatever little information I found was usually about somebody who passed at a very old age and somebody else losing their sibling. I said, “Where are the people who lost their siblings at my age? What are the resources?” At the time, there was nothing. I found one online grief group, and it was all over the