Family: Sibling Bonds in Life and Death

Your siblings are the only 

people in the world who know 

what it's like to have been 

brought up the way you were.  

                                                                   - Betsy Cohen




Today is National Siblings day and to be quite honest with you about it, I would not have know this if I had not seen a friends post on her Facebook page stating so.  I think its great that one woman has dedicated her life to Commemorate National Siblings Day.  Claudia Evart is the founder and director of Siblings Foundation Day.  Claudia lost two siblings in separate accidents early in her life.  She chose April 10th to honor both her brother and her sister (who was born on that date).  Claudia has no remaining siblings left walking on earth but they oversee her journey from the heavens above.

Blood Siblings:

  Jocelyn(1995-1998), Jett(1992), Jordon(1995), Joel(1982 - 2007), Jayson (1976-2000)

My heart weighs heavy daily for the loss of three of my four siblings.  Jocelyn killed in a tricycle accident at the age of 3, Joey died of lung cancer at the age of 24, and Jayson killed by a drunk driver at the age of 24.  Each death altered the dynamics of my family in heart shattering ways.  Each time a sibling died, a part of our family make-up died along with them.  The love of our mother grew and the love our 'dad' faded.  When Jocelyn died, myself and my three brothers became closer, stayed nearer to each other, and bonded tighter as siblings.  Five siblings became four, and the fear of losing another sibling made being together seem like the right thing to do.  We bonded as our family started to fall apart.

It would be less then two years later when the death of our oldest sibling would again change the dynamics of our family unit.  I was six when my sister died, and eight when Jayson died.  I was young and although those deaths were confusing to me, I was able to at least detect a change in my environment even though I never really understood where they went and how their deaths effected the rest of my family.  When Jordy left home at the age of 14, shortly after Jayson died, I figured he had gone to live with them, to get away from all the sadness and anger left behind in our Bushnell house.



I was 13 when Joey became ill and was diagnosed with lung cancer, he would die a year later, when I was  fourteen.  This is the death that taught me about life.  In the last several years Joey took on the role of not only being a great brother to me, but a mentor, a father, a friend.  Ten years separated our births but nothing separated the bond we formed the last year of Joey's life.  When God took Joey from his journey on earth he took away my hopes, my wishes, and my dreams of a life with the brother who would save me from an abusive father and provide me with a new life's journey on a path where love was never questioned and pain never left a mark on the physical me. 

While today is designed to celebrate traditional siblings, I cannot leave out the misfits in my life that walk my journey with me as brothers.  Since my birth parents were only ever married to each other and all five of us have the same father and mother I have no half siblings, no step siblings.  My misfit brothers Charlie and Zander came into my life in the past two years and we have bonded as strong as siblings can.  We fight, we argue, we prank each other, we hang out together, we share friends, we share families.  We are as tight as brothers can be and today I also celebrate having them in my life.  I thank God for crossing their paths with mine and allowing us to from a misfit family that has taught me that blood brothers, as good as they are, are not the only brotherhood relationships available in life.  In Christ we are all brothers and sisters, and the misfits, the friends, the family that I have in my life complete me.

Happy National Siblings Day!  Count your blessings for God's gift of each breath of life you take on earth and those breaths beyond the breaths of life where we will all be united as brothers and sisters in the Kingdom of Heaven. 


(Please visit http://www.siblingsday.org/ and help support the Siblings Day Foundation, a non-profit organization establish in honor of siblings, alive and deceased.  There are many ways you can support this organization, visiting their site will allow you the options available.)

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters.

We know each other as we always were. 

We know each others hearts.

We share private family jokes.

We remember family feuds and secrets,

family griefs and joys.

We live outside the touch of time.

                                                                   - Clara Ortega