The Disenfranchised Grief of Sibling Loss (with Anne Pinkerton)

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Introduction – 0:00

 

BLAIR HODGES: Welcome to Relationscapes. A podcast where we map the stories and ideas that shape who we are and connect us with each other. Our guide in this episode is author Anne Pinkerton. 

ANNE PINKERTON: I really did learn to appreciate that the risk was worth it. Because he had the most extraordinary time. And I’m deeply grateful he had an extraordinary time while he was here. That’s what you want for someone you love. You want them to do the thing that makes them feel the most whole, the most spiritual, the most alive. I mean, the weirdest thing about David being dead is he was one of the most alive people I knew. It doesn’t square.

BLAIR HODGES: When author Anne Pinkerton's brother unexpectedly died alone in an extreme sporting accident, she faced one particular question over and over. People would ask, "Were You Close?" It was asked out of concern, but she says the question felt almost impossible to answer. In some ways, Anne and her brother David weren't close--they lived in different states, he was more than a decade older. But that distance seemed beside the point when she considered all the ways they were close. And after his death, she set out to find new ways to be closer.

In this episode Anne Pinkerton joins us to talk about how grief over the loss of a sibling is one of the most overlooked griefs people can experience. Her book is called Were You Close: A Sister's Quest to Know the Brother She Lost.

 

The Question People Ask: Were You Close? – 1:59

 

BLAIR HODGES: Anne Pinkerton, welcome to Relationscapes.

ANNE PINKERTON: Thanks so much, Blair.

BLAIR HODGES: Your book is called Were You Close? The title comes from one of the most common questions you say you’re asked by people who find out that your brother died. People want to know, “Were you close to him?” And you say you’ll often pause for a moment and then give an answer like, “Yes. Yes, we were.”

But you also say so much happens in that pause, in that moment before you say that. There are so many things that could go through your mind. So take us to that pause, and let’s stretch that out and talk about what happens when that question is given to you.

ANNE PINKERTON: When that question happened early on, it was a lot harder to answer than it is now—certainly after spending so much time thinking about it. But I think what bothered me about it the most was that I don’t think it matters. I don’t think that finding out that someone has lost someone—that’s the appropriate response.

And I’m not trying to berate anybody about that either, because I think we’re really bad at talking about grief in this culture. But basically, it caused me initially to doubt myself and think about all the ways that I wasn’t close to my brother.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. Give me some of those ideas, like what would go through your mind about feeling kind of distant in a way?

ANNE PINKERTON: Well, I thought about the fact that he was 12 years older than me, so we had almost a whole generation between us. And certainly, growing up when you’re kids, that might as well be, you know, almost an adult as your older sibling. And in some ways, he was quite kind of uncle-y to me as well as sibling-esque.

I think also because I moved away from Texas, where we grew up, and I ended up in Massachusetts, where I live now, we had a geographical distance. I didn’t talk to him that much, even though I loved him like crazy and was always really, really happy when we did talk.

But I didn’t really know what was going on with him all the time. So there were ways that we weren’t close in some sort of traditional way that other people would have recognized. But of course, siblings are close by their family of origin and growing up in a household together and all those kinds of things, and we were really, really quite loving towards each other.

And he always looked after me. So there were plenty of ways that I considered us incredibly close. And he was certainly the sibling I was closest to. But I still questioned—brought doubt into my own mind—which was a very strange sensation when I was bereaved.

BLAIR HODGES: Right. You say you experienced him as the "best brother ever." You really looked up to him. He cared for you when you were little. He, you know, would maybe sometimes change your diapers or kind of teach you how to ride a bike or be there at all these milestone moments for you.

But like you said, there was also this distance that had grown—not because of estrangement, but just sort of life circumstances. So I can imagine when people throw that question at you, yeah, you’d feel that ambivalence of, “Ah, I don’t know exactly how to answer that.” And like you said, what are they really asking?

Because you got the sense they’re kind of trying to gauge how sad you are—is what was maybe really behind that question.

ANNE PINKERTON: I do think it has that sort of undertone. It’s like, “Was this a person who mattered enough that we need to be really sorry for you...”

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

ANNE PINKERTON: Or was this a person who you just sort of knew and it was no big deal?

And I think my experience reading about and researching siblings sort of suggests that regardless, it’s going to be a sensitive kind of loss. It’s going to have feelings around it. And so even if we weren’t close at all, I think it’s still a very strange thing to say.

And also, I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I said to the questioner, “No.” If they would have been like, “Okay, okay—cool, we can move on.”

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

ANNE PINKERTON: But, you know, I just think it’s a very strange question. And the reason that I’m glad it ended up being the title is that others have found it really provocative in terms of resonating with them, because it’s the kind of dumb thing that we just automatically ask in this culture.

And it’s such a strange thing to say, in my opinion.

BLAIR HODGES: I don’t have a direct memory of posing that question—“Were you close?”—but I’m sure I have. Like you said, these are kind of just the go-to questions that we might ask in a situation that otherwise is awkward, because like you said, we have a really hard time dealing with grief.

It can be uncomfortable to talk to people about grief. And you mentioned the time factor—that it’s a little bit different now than it was when you first started getting that question, so closer to the time when he actually died. And you thought that you would grow closer to your brother as time passed.

So the question also could remind you of an opportunity lost—that you kind of thought, “Okay, we’re at this time in our lives when we’ve grown apart a little bit, we’re distant, but I could also see us coming back together and getting even closer.”

And I love my brother, and I feel love from him. And so it also kind of pointed to the future as well—like a lost future possibility for you, that you could have become even closer.

ANNE PINKERTON: I think that’s exactly right. And I think a lot of people feel that when they lose somebody—that there’s that end point where the relationship theoretically can’t continue. I think that I probably posed the question in this book of whether that’s true or not, because I found that there were a lot of ways to get closer to someone even after they were gone.

But you’re exactly right—there’s a grief for what might have happened between you in the future, what you could have done together, how you could have become closer. Certainly now I’m dealing with aging parents and wishing he were around to assist, especially in his role as a physician.

But yeah, it’s a really complicated thing, because you do lose the person in your life, but you also lose everything that might have been between you.

 

How David Died – 7:50

 

BLAIR HODGES: One of the questions I find myself resisting is, “How did they die?” Because that also seems like a really personal question. Have you found many people that are that direct with you about it, or do people tiptoe around asking about how he died as well?

ANNE PINKERTON: I mean, it’s funny—I’m a pretty straight-up person, and as you know, he died in a pretty dramatic way. So if people ask me, I’m honest about it. And then they’re usually a little shocked and taken aback, maybe because they didn’t anticipate it being that kind of answer.

Although maybe the fact of neither of us being particularly ancient when this happened reduced the possibility of him having some kind of an illness—although obviously anyone—

BLAIR HODGES: That can happen, sure, yeah.

ANNE PINKERTON: So people do tend to act like that’s a private part of the story sometimes, and then sometimes they just come right out with it.

I mean, certainly people die in all kinds of grotesque ways, and when you ask that question, you are opening yourself up to learning something you might not want to know—which might be part of why people are also cagey about it. I’m not sure.

But you’re right—we culturally have only a handful of things that we’ve sort of been told that we can say. And so it’s complicated.

BLAIR HODGES: The other thing is I tend to phrase it like, “Can I ask how they died?” I’ll even sort of soft-float the question if I was to ask it.

ANNE PINKERTON: Well, I think that’s sensitive—it gives them the option to say, “Actually, I’d rather not discuss it,” which I think is really sweet.

Because maybe people don’t—certainly, I’ve gotten to be very open about my own story, and I’ve always been pretty honest—maybe to my detriment sometimes—but, you know, people have varying levels of comfort, as you’re well aware, and so they may or may not want to talk about it.

I think the thing that’s a little bit sad—and again, this is not me trying to be instructive about people talking to someone who’s grieving—is that it’s very rare that someone says, “What was his name?” or “What was he like?”

Which is honestly what a lot of people want to talk about, because they want to remember their person. And so if you give them an opportunity just to remember their person with you, that’s a real kindness. So I’m just throwing it out there as a suggestion.

BLAIR HODGES: We'll talk more about other questions that people ask a little bit later. But first, let's talk about how he died. You say in retrospect, you write in the book that the way David died was actually completely predictable. You say, in a way, it was even poetic. So tell us how David died.

ANNE PINKERTON: Sure. So, in addition to working as a radiologist for many years, he was an elite athlete, and that was something that sometimes paid, but mostly his passion. And he spent every free moment that he could on some kind of outdoor adventure, ranging from ultra marathons in Colorado to mountain biking in Costa Rica, to, you know, water skiing.

Anything outside, doing almost any kind of discipline, was exciting for him. It was the way that he felt most alive and was super fun for him. He did it both by himself and in teams. He headed up an adventure racing team.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, this is the first I've heard about this. Was your book is like, oh. But then it was like, of course this exists. Like, there are people that would love this stuff.

ANNE PINKERTON: So I do sometimes tell people that adventure racing is a little bit like a triathlon on steroids, because it invariably includes a whole slew of different outside disciplines. So it could be mountain bike racing, it could be running, swimming, kind of classic things, but it could also be a ropes course. It could be horseback riding, literally mountains, the kinds of things that people come up with. It's very entertaining. They're very ambitious in making things as challenging as possible.

The other difference is that you're doing it on a team of three to four people that I think are always required to be co-ed, though that has a variety of meanings at this point, that they usually take a week or two and require a lot of orienteering through the wilderness. So it really requires a giant skill set from the teams to get through.

A lot of adventure racers, I think, would suggest that just completing a course is its own accomplishment. So the race part is certainly competitive, but it's not always the goal for everybody, because people drop out for all kinds of reasons that you can imagine. Weather, injury, exhaustion. They're very challenging. I suppose they have a little bit of Ironman or something thrown in there too, like the things people hear about more.

But he found them absolutely thrilling and planned for months and trained and, you know, plotted courses and had maps and coordinated his team and all that stuff. Which led us up to him sort of at one point acknowledging to me that he wanted to do some more solo stuff, which is not a diss on any of his teammates who he adored, but that he also liked doing things on his own at his own pace.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. And he wasn't married, so he liked having friends and close relations. But he also did like time for himself as well.

ANNE PINKERTON: Yeah, for sure. And I think that he also just had sort of an independent streak. So his last quest that he'd taken on, which again goes back to this question of “were you close?” I didn't even know he was doing this little thing of wanting to climb all 54 or 58, however people count of the 14,000 foot plus mountains in Colorado, affectionately referred to as the Colorado 14ers. It's kind of a big undertaking, and I didn't even know. It was kind of like David's doing another thing. Literally every time I got together with him, it was, "What's the latest adventure?" Because it was always something.

So he had checked off, I guess, 37 of the mountains by the time we get to his last day, during which he, at a blinding pace, apparently, from the few people who saw him that day, took on three peaks, which is a very significant undertaking, as you can imagine, even if you aren't a competitive athlete or hiker.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I might hit three in a year.

ANNE PINKERTON: I think if I hit three in a year, I would feel extremely accomplished. Interestingly, people knew him. They felt really strongly that he was fit enough to do it.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

ANNE PINKERTON: And I think that the hardest part about the story is that he was alone when he had a fall. So nobody knows whether he got disoriented, if altitude was a factor, if there was a storm—like there are any number of theories about what might have happened. There certainly was some weather that day.

But, you know, he was really a good, prepared, smart, well-conditioned person who was actually ready to do that and somehow still fell. And it's not unusual that professional athletes have accidents. I mean, this is part of the deal. And it was part of the deal that at least conceptually he knew, because we had talked about that a little bit too.

But he fell 200 ft and died instantly and then went missing for two days, which was also excruciating. And I think about people who never find someone who's gone missing and how absolutely agonizing that must be, because those were like the longest 48 hours of my life. And while the outcome was terrible, it would have been, I think, that much more arduous to deal with if we didn't have any resolution at all. So it was a very intense experience and has taken a very long time to process. But certainly the book was part of that.

When Mom Broke the News – 15:47

 

BLAIR HODGES: And you found out before he was found. So all you knew was that he had some sort of tracker device on him and that that stopped moving and he hadn't contacted people that he was supposed to get in contact with. So obviously he's missing, search and rescue goes out, there are people looking for him. Your mom is the one who has to go out and identify his body.

And you describe her experience there, and she said that in terms of how he died, technically how he died, that a rib had pierced his heart. And she talked about seeing him, and she described his body as being in such good shape, "his head looked perfect," she said. Now later on there's questions about whether that could be right or not, whether her memory was as clear. But to have that kind of conversation with your mom, what was that like?

ANNE PINKERTON: I think because that happened in the immediate aftermath, I've had to think about the fact that we were still in the immediate aftermath. I don't think that it's easy for people to always sort of cognitively acknowledge the gravity of everything that's happened because you're just trying to survive.

So she was actually very reporter-like and rather unemotional, which the reason I give the caveat about being in the aftermath of something so shocking and sudden is that it's not the way that most people would behave if they had time to think about it. But she was, you know, on the cell phone with me from Colorado Springs, where she had been with a coroner and done something unthinkable.

Naturally, people do have to do this. That's a reality for some of us. And my heart breaks for her having have that experience. But, yeah, it was very strange what happened to us, there were moments of falling apart, and there were moments of, we've just got to figure out how to keep moving. And so I think, in a way, that really kind of drew out a lot of the mourning process because there was so much kind of—

It's a lot of what I think gets referred to as “death admin” in the immediate aftermath that isn't very...you know, it isn't spiritual. It isn't good feeling. It isn't sort of cathartic in the way that you wish it would be. It's very much like we have to figure out what to do with a body now that is in another state, and having to do that when your heart is broken is so strange. It was really kind of surreal in the immediate, because I don't think any of us had any way of knowing exactly how to deal emotionally at that moment.

 

Death Admin Work – 18:32

 

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. Especially when it's so unexpected. You talk about how absurd it felt that a memorial had to be planned, all of a sudden, like, this just has to be done. And you kind of got into some tense conversations with your brother Tommy when you spoke with him about the memorial service.

Take us to that conversation where you're talking to Tommy about the memorial service.

ANNE PINKERTON: Yeah, I remember very vividly talking with him about what we would want to do and how we would do it. And I had ideas and I had opinions about not doing a traditional church service because my brother wasn't religious.

And just the year previous, we'd been at our grandmother's funeral, and he thought it was very stodgy, and it just wasn't him. It's not to judge what anybody else wants to do, but I felt really strongly because he was such an extraordinary person and had such a different kind of life that it seemed only natural that we would try to do something really extraordinary in his honor, which, of course, is a very tall order when you're dealing with all of that other stuff that I mentioned. But I think I was angry that Tommy was saying he just wanted to get it done.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

ANNE PINKERTON: Which is something I've heard from other people in my family and around me since then. When somebody has died, especially if they've died suddenly, it's like, we need to get over this. We need to put it past us. Which, of course, isn't how it works emotionally and psychologically.

But there is, I think, a temptation to believe that somehow, if you go through this ritual, this rite of passage that we've created for ourselves, to acknowledge somebody's life and death, that somehow then you can just clean your hands of it and move on. So Tommy was saying we had to just get it done. And that meant taking the sort of path of least resistance, which meant using his and David's stepmother's church.

Now, in retrospect, I'm deeply, abidingly, endlessly grateful to Sarah, their stepmother, because she was so able to cope when the rest of us were falling apart. I think she was just one degree of separation away. So it helped her kind of manage things better. She's also just a wildly competent human being.

But she offered the use of her Unitarian church and her minister. And it seems strange because we didn't know them and my brother had no relationship to them. But I have to say, in the end it turned out great because Unitarians are actually very chill, very cool, left-of-center people who are happy to do a non-traditional ceremony. So ended up being actually very beautiful.

But I had had this fantasy that we needed to do some kind of giant outdoor tribute. And you know, that was going to be very David-branded as it ended up. It was very David branded in the end anyways, which is all detailed at some length in the book.

BLAIR HODGES: I thought it was cool that they had the bike there, for example, like his orange bike.

ANNE PINKERTON: Yeah, that was part of what was very special and also kind of eerie about the whole experience is because he was cremated, there wasn't a body to be brought into the church. His ashes were certainly there, sort of symbolically, to just represent. But even more deeply symbolic was his orange bike, which was the last mountain bike that he had and that had been recovered by his teammates on the mountain that day. Or he had, I guess, ditched it that day and they found it a little bit later.

But yeah, that was wild. Seeing a church altar that was holding a mountain bike. So that part was very much on brand.

BLAIR HODGES: You wanted to take some kind of part in it. But being at a distance, you were kind of given an assignment to read something. And this is another thing like where at the time, in that moment, you were unsettled. But in this case, fortunately, it actually turned out kind of beautiful. Tell us a little bit about the little part that you played in the memorial.

ANNE PINKERTON: I did. I mean, I think this was part of my brother Tommy, my surviving brother, sort of giving me grief about being so far away. Acting like somehow I couldn't actively participate because I was many states away. So when I arrived, I was sort of told that I would be reading an excerpt from The Little Prince by St. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. My French is terrible. Excuse me. 

BLAIR HODGES: I always called him “ex-oop-ree.” [laughter] 

ANNE PINKERTON: Okay, that guy, the Little Prince guy, he wrote this beautiful book. But I didn't understand how it related to my brother. I didn't understand why I was being handed something instead of being asked to do something. I'm sure a lot of families get into this.

BLAIR HODGES: And you like to write too.

ANNE PINKERTON: Well, true. Although it was certainly less a part of my identity then because I was just writing for work, you know, I wasn't writing personally as much then. But anyways, my then-sister-in-law, Alison, had selected a passage from The Little Prince that was extremely beautiful. That had to do with the Little Prince and the fox having an encounter and talking about the color of the wheat and how it reminded the fox of the Little Prince's hair.

And it was actually so beautiful that in the moment, that was where I kind of lost it in the service, as I thought I was going to just be doing this sort of anesthetized thing that I was told to do. And it ended up actually really hitting me hard once I read it, because it's very... it is very poetic and very beautiful. And so that passage is reproduced in the book too, because it's about... I guess it's about finding those things in the world that remind you of your person, which has actually had great lasting value for me. There are all kinds of things that remind me of David literally daily, still 16 years later.
So it's actually, it was a very sweet moment in the end.

BLAIR HODGES: And then your family had to decide what to do with the cremains. And how did you get together? How did you decide what to do?

ANNE PINKERTON: I think it's interesting because my brother had not talked to us about it. We didn't really even know. And this is where I really find the acknowledgment of how tight teammates are. This probably goes the same in bands and things. But anyway, his Adventure Racing team was very tight and spent all these zillions of hours outside doing arduous things together.

I mean, exciting, thrilling things that were super dangerous. But they also talked about how dangerous it was. They talked about people that they had lost. They talked about how various things happened, and I guess... I guess my brother told them he wanted to be cremated and that one of the coolest things he'd heard about was a friend's father's ashes had been taken around to various wild places and been scattered all over, which made so much sense for David because he, as I mentioned, loved to travel, loved to be in different places.

And so we spent a very interesting afternoon divvying up my brother's cremated remains into various parcels so that we could hand them out to our closest family and friends so that they could take them all over the world. And it has happened. And I've heard a lot of really interesting stories in the years following about where my brother has ended up.

And I think he would actually be really tickled that we took that approach rather than interring him somewhere, that he would be stuck. So it's been really kind of cool. I've taken ashes to various places that are important to me, and he's even ended up on a couple of other 14ers with his teammates.

So it's actually been a really nice way to remember him and to provide some kind of a tribute that, again, is more extraordinary in the way that I think my brother was extraordinary.

 

The Memorial Bench – 26:34

 

BLAIR HODGES: You've also found it important to have kind of a place where you can go, because since his ashes are scattered around, there's not like a set place where his body is, right? That you can go visit. But there is a memorial bench, maybe. Tell us a little bit about that.

ANNE PINKERTON: Yeah. And some things have happened since then with that bench, which are very strange. But in the book I talk... yeah, I'll give you an update on the bench, if you like. The bench?

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, for sure.

ANNE PINKERTON: You know, I think lots and lots of folks will recognize the memorial bench as something that they've seen in parks and various places and cities where somebody has paid to have a little plaque that says that it's in honor of somebody. I never really gave them a second thought until David died, and we didn't have a grave to visit.

And I realized kind of that it is important for a lot of folks to have a touchstone like that. And so my mom, kind of brilliantly on her own, suggested that we get a bench in David's honor and put it up in Memorial Park in Houston, which is where he used to actually ride mountain bikes in this... this one really kind of cool trailed area. And so we had this very simple, sturdy little bench that we would go and see every time I was in town.

BLAIR HODGES: Now I'm worried because you're speaking in past tense here.

ANNE PINKERTON: I know. It's okay. It has a happy ending, sort of.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay.

ANNE PINKERTON: Basically, a couple years ago, the park decided to remodel that part of the area. And they took out the bench, and they didn't tell us. And they say they lost track of contact info and things. Who knows? It was a whole rigmarole. Anyway, there's a new bench. There's a second bench, finally. That's the good news.
BLAIR HODGES: That's like moving someone's grave in a semi-place you would go to remember him. That's huge.

ANNE PINKERTON: I thought it was a very big deal, too. I couldn't imagine, like, being a construction worker and just sort of, like, unsentimentally taking out this thing. That, to me, was sincerely as deeply symbolic as a grave.
BLAIR HODGES: Right.

ANNE PINKERTON: So anyways, just in the... in the last six or eight months, Mom and I worked with the Park Conservancy to actually get a new bench installed, which they... they were very apologetic and they... they had saved the plaque from the bench. At least that had been put in some file somewhere. It was all very weird.

BLAIR HODGES: Wow. Yeah, that's really weird. Here, put this in the filing cabinet. Okay.

ANNE PINKERTON: I mean, these are the kinds of things that... that you just learned.

BLAIR HODGES: That's nice because, like, the plaque is the same too. So, you know, you still have that physical thing. I really... I really think physical things can make a big difference for some people. People process grief in a lot of different ways, but physical objects, I think, can be... can be really important in how we process grief and remember people who've died.

ANNE PINKERTON: So I totally agree. And I... I was super sad about the bench. It's... it's even in a slightly different location now. So it's... it's taken a little adjustment, but they did their best in terms of accommodating us, and I... and I do appreciate them for that. So... so we still have a place to go visit now, which is much better than the couple of years where we were wondering what the hell happened.

BLAIR HODGES: Wow. It took a couple years.

ANNE PINKERTON: Well, in fairness, people sometimes don't deal very quickly, i.e., Mom.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, good.

All right. We're talking with Anne Pinkerton about her book, Were You Close? A Sister’s Quest to Know the Brother She Lost.

 

Life Became More Urgent – 29:42

 

BLAIR HODGES: So, Anne, in the months after his death, you say you started to feel this kind of remarkable lack of fear all of a sudden, this newfound urgency about life, that things didn't really start getting back to normal for you and I think some people expect grief to maybe—

How do I know that I'm getting over my grief? It's like things are getting back to normal. Things feel like they used to. That's not really how it works for a lot of people. And for you it was this new urgency. Talk about those first couple of months. What was going on in your life?

ANNE PINKERTON: Well, I was 35 and David was 47 when this all happened. And I think when you think somebody's going to be with you for the rest of your life and they're suddenly pulled out from under you like a rug, you have a real tendency to analyze whether where you are in your life is where you want to be. If you're doing what you want to be doing, if you're taking advantage of everything you should be.

The urgency came from recognizing for the truly the first time in my life that anyone can die at any time. That's actually quite terrifying, and it's kind of motivating. I found it terribly important to think about whether I was living my life the way that I should be, whether I was phoning it in, whether I was not taking advantage of all the goodness.

And it did make me do some impulsive things, like go to New York City on a work night for a concert was one of the things that my mom found very strange. But it was like, if I don't do it now, will I ever do it? It was what actually maybe got me to write this book ultimately was I wanted to re-embrace my personal writing. And that was huge. I mean, I recognized the possibility that I might not have done that otherwise.

I mean, I'd give it all back to have David. But sure, there were a lot of really kind of cool things that happened about it. I stopped settling at a job that wasn't making me happy. Probably should have left my marriage right then, which is something that crossed my mind. But ultimately did.

So it did motivate me to make some really substantial shifts, and it helped me to take advantage of some things. I talk in the book about going back to grad school, which I never anticipated doing, which is not to say I racked up some list of like, these great life accomplishments because my brother died.

But I did take it very seriously that we're all on limited time here and that I consider this experience of life very precious. And I want to make sure to do cool things with it. I want to not come to the end of my days and think that I should have done something differently.

Because if I can say anything about David's death at 47, I can say that guy lived more than most of us do in his 47 years. So I guess I took away that...I really want to be able to...I'd say look back, I don't know if you get to do that when you die, but that I would like to at least know that I sort of made sure to suck the marrow out or whatever it is, the carpe diem of it.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, like, "seize the day" sounds so cliché in some ways, but yeah, seize the day! I really appreciate how you point out that you weren't necessarily making these choices because your brother died or that, like, this was the main thing. But I think so many of your choices after that point had the shadow of his death sort of hanging over them.

So I think, you know, whether or not we could really figure out in your personal psychology about, like, why exactly you made these decisions. What we can say for sure is that so many of those big decisions were informed by what you saw happen to your brother.

ANNE PINKERTON: 100%. And I think when I think about risk and his risk taking, I think it pushed me to take my own risks. Obviously, they're very different risks. They're not generally going to be quite as, at least bodily endangering. But there's something about publishing a very personal, very honest memoir that is actually pretty risky in some ways.

And I'm not trying to quite make the parallel between climbing mountains and that, but there's something about doing what you've always wanted to do. And in my case, it was like, I really, really wanted to do some serious writing that was my own.

And other things have happened. I wanted to have a better relationship. I'm on my way. I wanted to play music again. I'm on my way. You know, there are a lot of things about my personal experience that I think did change for the better, because I was like, I'm going to be afraid, but I'm going to do it anyway. And that's very much my brother, you know, he was not particularly afraid, and he did all these things, and I just feel like I don't want to regret the things that I didn't do.

 

The Bereavement Writing Group – 34:22

 

BLAIR HODGES: Let's talk more about your writing. So loneliness is starting to set in for you after his death. You're feeling disconnected from your partner at the time. It's almost like he's feeling like you're not getting through your sorrow quickly or that there's some disconnect there in your personal relationship.

And you got advice from someone to try this bereavement writing group, which you're kind of hesitant to do because you're like, I don't know, is this going to be some kind of like religiousy thing? This, like, touchy-feely? It's not really your thing.

But you were also interested in writing. You had reasons to hesitate. But again, speaking to this newfound courage, you went anyway. And in the book, you include some of the actual writing that you did in there. And I thought it would be great to have you read from something you wrote at the time. This is on page 111. Can we have you read this excerpt that you wrote in that bereavement group?

ANNE PINKERTON: Sure. I call it "Looking Into the Fire. What we're doing here." I wrote:

The world makes it impossible to carve out the time, the focus, the energy to look. It actively encourages us to avert our eyes. Being a mess is not socially acceptable. Calling out from work because of heartache is frowned upon.

Not that I've dared to try. But stuffing it down inside is like tamping gunpowder. Knowing a discharge, an explosion, is inevitable. We go between real life, faker than fake, so we don't upset anyone, and looking into this fire despite the eye-hurting brightness in the darkness, the heat, the danger in looking. There is bigger danger in never looking, in looking away.

It's like the way candles can light each other's wicks without losing any of their own energy, passing the flame on the way an ember can fly and ignite a forest. The fear is seeing it all rage out of control. But averting our eyes is like waiting for a sudden backdraft. Is it some kind of masochism? Revisiting the pain, letting it burn me again?

Or is it the overwhelming need to etch my memories like a brand onto myself? There is a discipline to it. Learning how to toast a marshmallow instead of burning down an entire house, figuring out the hole inside of us instead of ignoring it and listening to it tick like a bomb.

Consider the controlled burn or the intentional fires set to offset other ones. Cleaning out the pine needles, dry leaves, the kindling of our hearts to avoid self-immolation later. Imagine keeping this fire lit rather than letting it turn to ashes or watering it into a sopping mess. It requires stoking. It requires attention and care.

It needs oxygen. Look into the fire, appreciating how full of energy it is with potential for destruction or to shed a vital light.

BLAIR HODGES: That's Anne Pinkerton reading from the book, Were You Close? A Sister’s Quest to Know the Brother She Lost.

The prompt that led to that was "Tonight, what's on my mind is this." So that was just stream of consciousness of what you were going through. And I think you say what was so nice about this group was eight of you were gathered together in this tiny library of this meeting house and you were all in it together in a way, like nobody was there expecting you to not complain about something or to feel hurt or there was a solidarity there with these otherwise strangers just because of the loss.

ANNE PINKERTON: I think it's one of the things that I didn't know I would appreciate so much about a bereavement group was that everybody was there for the same reason. It's probably similar to the way people who are dealing with alcoholism appreciate being in an AA group. It's just being with other people who get it, who aren't necessarily part of your life at all, but who have a unique understanding of what you're going through.

And I think because we're so ill-equipped at dealing with grief and loss in this culture, being able to find a space where other people just inherently understand it is huge. It gets to be incredibly lonely sometimes, especially after the first couple of months have passed. You know, people move on with their lives and they aren't giving you lots of attention and check-ins and, you know, the cards and flowers have stopped, the dropping off of food has stopped.

And it's not because they don't love you. It's because that's life. And I've done it!

BLAIR HODGES: And there's probably other people to take a card to by then, you know.

ANNE PINKERTON: Yeah, for sure. So I can't overestimate how nice it was to be in this very safe place among people from whom the only thing expected was to be honest about what we were going through. And that that didn't mean we even always had to share anything we were doing. You know, it was just an opportunity to process together in whatever way worked for each individual member.

And it was very special.

BLAIR HODGES: And my heart went out to you when you described at one point feeling like it was self-indulgent, like you almost had to talk yourself into deserving it, or that this was something that you should be doing. That's so sad to me that you had to say I should take time to be in this space.

ANNE PINKERTON: That's so interesting. I think that's the other part of this notion that we need to keep, get over, get through, get it done with, that it's like we have this tendency to want there to be something very clean about it. I mean, reminds me of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross five stages of grief thing.

As if you go through five stages and then somehow you're done and it's over. Not to mention the fact that that wasn't what she wrote it for anyway. But that's a whole other story for another day.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, that's like our cultural use of it is there's this process of grief. I'm going to do each step and then I'll be ready to go.

ANNE PINKERTON: Terribly alluring to think that there is some kind of checklist. I mean, I certainly understand the attraction, but grief, for anyone who's experienced it at all, knows how incredibly messy it can get. And as soon as you think that you've somehow reached some other side of it, something else slaps you upside the head unexpectedly.

I mean, it's a very messy path. I think the nice thing that finally occurred to me was it was okay to be messy and it was okay to take time to process. And it did feel indulgent. Because not everybody in my life understood why, because not everybody in my life had gone through anything like that.

And I think I've probably experienced, at least to my parents, a lot of loss for somebody my age especially, you know, then being 35, I'd already lost some really close friends. And so I think when you get hit with a lot of that early on, it does change your perspective. And certainly now I encourage everyone I come across who's lost someone to take the time they need and process it the way they need to, and that there aren't any rules about it.

And I try very hard to give people permission to feel their feelings around it and do whatever works for them because it is a very—it's a very, very challenging thing. And I think if you do look into the fire, as I suggest, instead of trying to avert your eyes, you can actually come to some real revelations about yourself and your life and what matters to you and have some clarity through that process. So I'm a real big proponent about taking the time now.

 

The Hierarchy of Grief – 41:44

 

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. And as you're staring into the fire, you're also not just attending this group, but you're reading up on grief. You're looking for people to connect with and for ideas to connect with. And you're looking for psychologists and specialists who might be able to help you deal with your pain. And you found that it was kind of tricky to track down books that were about sibling loss in particular.

And I actually encountered the same problem when I wanted to find a book to talk about on the show. And this is how I found your book was yours really stood out, but it was hard to find. And you say it was kind of the same for you when you were trying to find something to read?

ANNE PINKERTON: Absolutely it was. And that was part of the lonely feeling, I think, when people got, again, got past that initial moment, I realized I couldn't keep leaning on people. This is before I found this bereavement group, which was so great. I'd go to bookstores and just ask clerks, like, are there books about losing brothers and sisters?

And they would look at me so blankly. And I looked online and I could find very little. And I mean, when they looked at me blankly, they also were surprised that they couldn't think of anything.

BLAIR HODGES: Right.

ANNE PINKERTON: We would go to self-help sections and memoir sections and this and that, and would find all kinds of stories about people losing spouses and parents and children and even grandparents. And I thought, that's all totally valid, but where's the stuff for the siblings? And I—and I realized once I did start reading about sibling relationships and sibling grief that there just aren't that many people who research it and that there haven't been that many stories told about it.

That has improved over the last few years. There are more books I can recommend to others. But there's this concept that was coined by Kenneth—oh God, I'm gonna get his name wrong right now—

BLAIR HODGES: Doka?

ANNE PINKERTON: Kenneth Doka. Thank you. "Disenfranchised grief," which is the sense that you're not getting the acknowledgement or validation about what you're experiencing in your loss that someone else might.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, this is a light bulb moment for me. I remember his name because he's describing what you experienced, which is a loss that's not widely embraced or understood by the broader public, by many people in your life. And it leaves people feeling inadequately consoled because it's kind of lower on this hierarchy of loss.

This disenfranchised grief is grief that's not recognized and embraced for what it is. So I wanted to hear from you about that hierarchy. What did you learn about that hierarchy? And this was fascinating to me. You saw it happening in the other questions that people would ask you about David when they found out that he died.

ANNE PINKERTON: Right. Anyone who knows me knows this phrase "hierarchy of grief," because I'm so obnoxious about it. But I think it's because you already feel like garbage because you lost someone so important to you, and then someone wants to act like it wasn't that big a deal.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

ANNE PINKERTON: So the hierarchy of grief goes: Children are the worst thing in the world to lose. I'm not going to argue with anybody about that, especially since I don't have children. And I know that's a huge, unimaginable thing for most people. And my heart goes out to anyone who's out dealing with it because it must be pain beyond reason. So I'm here to validate everybody's grief.

The thing about siblings coming below grandparents on this whole thing is just stunning.

BLAIR HODGES: Right.

ANNE PINKERTON: So I didn't have a lot of people say, like, "Oh, gosh, your brother," or that, you know, "That must be terrible." I instead would get almost immediately, "Was he married? Did he have kids? How’s your mom?" And that's sort of the way it went. And I didn’t actually know that I wasn’t alone in finding that line of questioning so heartbreaking until I spoke to Tommy, my surviving brother, and I said, "Do people ask you, was he married? Did he have children? How’s your mom?"

BLAIR HODGES: Because, yeah, Tommy’s like, "How did you know?"

ANNE PINKERTON: He burst into tears. And I don’t know that we’ve ever—I don’t know that we’ve ever seen each other as well as we did in that moment because we had experienced such an alienating thing exactly the same way. Because you want to say, "But I’m standing right here. He was my brother. He was my brother."

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

ANNE PINKERTON: You know, and you want to be able to own it. And it’s not that all those other family members don’t matter, obviously. 

BLAIR HODGES: No.

ANNE PINKERTON: But it’s a way of sort of—it’s almost—it makes you feel absolutely invisible. It makes you feel like somehow you aren’t even part of the picture and that you’re just representing your family. You’re not really part of it.

BLAIR HODGES: The strangest thing happened to me while I was reading your book, and I actually sent you a picture. We were down in Kanab, and I took a picture of the book down there because it’s this beautiful sort of desert landscape. And I just thought it’s the kind of place that I’m sure David would have loved. And so I just wanted to send you, like, his book down there. Like, David’s still on the move. He’s out here.

And that day, I had dropped my wife off—she was going to do some canyoneering with this group that she’s a part of. And I had a couple minutes to spare while I was dropping her off. So I popped open Facebook and I saw the very first post I’m in. And I don’t really know this person. I’m Facebook friends with more people than I know. But I see this post from a woman whose husband just died, and she’s posted these family pictures. She says, “We took these pictures a week ago, and my husband died. He died in an accident similar to David.”

ANNE PINKERTON: Wow.

BLAIR HODGES: While I’m reading your book, and even in that moment, my mind first went— it was like clockwork. Right? To the kids. I’m looking at the picture and I’m thinking, like, all these poor kids. And I’m thinking, this poor wife. And then I’m like, wow, I’m doing it right now. Like, I’m reading, I’m actively reading a book about how, you know. But then it did make me wonder at that moment, I wonder if he had siblings and I wonder how they’re doing. Because like you said, this hierarchy of grief, it’s just baked in. I experienced it while reading your book.

ANNE PINKERTON: Well, in fairness, it wasn’t his sister in front of you right then. So you get, you get some pass there. You were looking at the wife and children, and certainly they’re a huge deal. That’s a chosen family, too.

BLAIR HODGES: Absolutely.

ANNE PINKERTON: But I’m grateful that then. But then you thought about whether he might have had some siblings out there. 

 

Other Disenfranchised Grievers – 48:04

 

BLAIR HODGES: Well, I thought about his friends too, David’s team, like they were sibling-ish. Right? I think friend loss can be this way. I think for people who aren’t married and have a very close friend who dies, it could be— it’s just as hard as losing a family member. But we don’t have, like, work policies that are going to be like, “Oh, go on bereavement leave for your friend or for your brother or whatever.”

ANNE PINKERTON: Oh, for sure. And I think friend loss is right up there because again, those are your chosen family. Those are people who are just as important to you. You just happen to not have blood relation. And yeah, actually, bereavement policy is a big one for me too, because talk about hierarchy of grief.

They’re going to give you more time for the people that they deem the most important in your life, full stop. Like, there’s no nuance to it.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, and David had a girlfriend at the time, too. Right? So, like, where— how does she fit in? If they ask you, like, “Is David married?” You’re like, well, right. He had a— he had a close— he had a partner. Like, you know, he did.

ANNE PINKERTON: And they were really, really tight and very loving, and he was really close with her kids. And, you know, it’s been a very strange experience to try to keep up with my dead brother’s former girlfriend’s kids. But, like, this is how life goes, that there are all of those connections that aren’t those sort of direct, familial things.

And maybe because my family tree is so splintered anyway, it’s never been particularly hard for me to imagine having these tendrils of connection with people who aren’t technically related to me. But, yeah, I think friends are huge and very much overlooked, and they can be just as close as anybody else. See, we come back to that question of closeness and what it means. How do you define it?

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I mean, I think the thing you wrote that really hit it home to me was that people wouldn’t ask a bereaved mother if the child had any siblings. Like, that’s not the question that comes to mind. But if I find out that someone’s sibling died, I do wonder, like, oh, oh, did they have kids? But we’re not asking a bereaved dad, where’s dad on the list. You mentioned how people go straight to, “Oh, how’s mom doing?”

ANNE PINKERTON: Totally.

BLAIR HODGES: This can be devastating for fathers, too. So—

ANNE PINKERTON: Great point.

BLAIR HODGES: But when you said that people don’t ask a bereaved mother if the child had any siblings, I was like, ooh, yeah, that’s exactly right.

ANNE PINKERTON: Well, and, you know, it’s actually been incredible to me to get some readers, people I didn’t know, who’ve reached out and said, this book really helped me understand what my kid is going through who lost their brother or sister, which I think is massive. That means so much to me. So there— there are—even if the moms weren’t asked, the moms were thinking about it.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. Yeah. You almost can’t not think about it if you’re in that family situation.

ANNE PINKERTON: Totally.

 

Things People Can Say Instead – 50:42

 

BLAIR HODGES: Before we move on, I wanted to ask, what kind of social scripts would you suggest for people? I know, like you said, you’re pretty open about this. You’re not trying to prescribe the exact right ways for everybody to do things. But you mentioned a little bit earlier the type of questions that you would like people to ask in your situation.

ANNE PINKERTON: This situation is terribly tricky, you know, because I’ve posed the issue of were you close? as being a hard one. People have said to me, “Well, what should I say?” And of course, there are a million ideas about this. And I don’t want to tell anybody what they should or shouldn’t do.

I think I just want them to be sensitive to the fact that certain questions can be hard and certain statements can be hard. I think the only absolute no-no in the world that every grief study or poster writer about who I’ve dealt with says is—don’t say, at least people love to say, at least he died doing what he loved.

Yes, sure, that’s something. But every time you say at least to somebody, it minimizes their experience because—and they’re doing what we all do, at least in American culture—of trying to somehow put a silver lining on the thing. I guess I would suggest to just not undermine how sucky it is, just be like, this is terrible. I am so sorry.

There’s nothing wrong with that approach as far as I’m concerned. Granted, I am one individual, sure. But I think having somebody try to make death prettier, easier, nicer, quicker—that’s all very difficult for the person who’s going through it. So I think if you can at least acknowledge, like, this is awful. I’m so sorry it happened. Sometimes that’s enough.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. The thing I have to resist is not trying to rush them past what their grief is, to make myself feel a little bit better, because it’s hard to be with someone in pain and to let them have that pain. I just want it to go away, in part because it makes me feel also uncomfortable.

So sometimes that’s the impulse I have to resist, is I’m not here to push them through the grieving process or tell them what it needs to be. And sometimes, like you said, the best thing you can do is just say, that sucks. That really sucks. And if that person that you’re talking to is going to be in your life for a while or their close friend, then you can have those other conversations about, hey, tell me about David. Like, what was he like? I want to know more about this guy. This sounds amazing. He was—what kind of stuff was he doing?

 

Diving Into David’s World – 53:14

 

BLAIR HODGES: You describe in the book, you kind of became this armchair adventurer yourself. Like you wanted to know about—what was he doing in his life? What’s going on here?

I loved learning about that stuff. That part of the book was really enjoyable to me—to find out, to see you going through and learning about what he was up to. And then now you’re telling me. So I learned all about these kind of outdoor adventure stuff. I mean, one of the most important things you did in the aftermath of his death was subscribe to—

ANNE PINKERTON: Described to Outside magazine.

ANNE PINKERTON: Absolutely. I think that I got a bit obsessed in terms of trying to understand why he loved what he loved. And fortunately, there are some really killer writers at Outside magazine. Some of them have gone on to do lots of other things, like Jon Krakauer doing Into Thin Air and Into the Wild—things like that.

I read everything I could get my hands on because I wanted to find a way to immerse myself in something that was like what David did. Because, of course, I was left with all these questions I wished I’d asked while he was alive about what it was like to camp outside and try to find your way on a map and what kind of gear you had to have.

And I really did turn into kind of a weird expert in all kinds of various outside endeavors that I would probably never undertake. So, yeah, that’s the armchair adventurer part of it—like sitting here with a book or online or whatever, talking to a search and rescue guy who was also a mountaineer, or just getting really, really interested in investigating all the things and trying to get my arms around why it was so thrilling, why it was so rewarding, why it mattered, why it made my brother feel so alive.

So, yeah, I have a lot—a lot of books on adventure also.

BLAIR HODGES: How it could possibly be worth the risk, because there were risks and he knew about them. Was there any resentment in any of the pursuit? I’m sure there’s a lot of different motivations at different times because—and crop up. But was there ever a time also when you’re like, dang it, I—why did you have to do this like this?

ANNE PINKERTON: Oh, yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: There’s so much pain in the aftermath of the choices you made.

ANNE PINKERTON: Oh, for sure. I mean, it felt profoundly selfish to me at first because I was so hurt that—that, I mean, I felt abandoned. And I—you know, I think a lot of people feel abandoned, especially if somebody dies suddenly and, you know, doing something that was theoretically avoidable. Right. I mean, yeah, but—

But the reality is that we can all get in our car and go to the grocery store and die any day. In fact, cars are the most dangerous thing we do, and we all do it blithely every day. So I really did actually learn to appreciate that the risk was worth it because he had the most extraordinary time.

And I’m deeply grateful he had an extraordinary time while he was here. That’s what you want for someone you love. You want them to do the thing that makes them feel the most whole, the most spiritual, the most alive. I mean, the weirdest thing about David being dead is he was one of the most alive people I knew. It doesn’t square.

But, yeah, I think there’s a lot to be said for learning about why it mattered to him. That made me feel so much more at peace about him doing it and him owning his life that way. And I think our lives do belong to us. That’s not to suggest we don’t have responsibilities to others.

But, you know, we could all pretend that we can be safe by not taking risks and not taking chances and not—not doing the thing, even though we’re afraid. And I think that’s probably a mistake at this point. I think—it’s really a big deal if you can find something you love that much to be able to really do it, take advantage of it.

And what he seized onto—doing athletics and the great outdoors—and he never looked back. It was— it was his absolute joy. And so when you finally recognize that that has brought somebody such intense passion, such great joy, how can you take that away from them?

So I’m much more keen to acknowledge that people should do what they want to do. And—and I know that sounds overly simplistic, but, you know, I’m dating a guy who rides a motorcycle. There’s a lot of risk there. But you know what? He loves it. He loves it. He loves it.

How could I take it away from him?

BLAIR HODGES: Well, you could take his keys away.

ANNE PINKERTON: No, not gonna do that. Not gonna do that. I get—I just—I really—I was profoundly mad when David died. I was so mad. I thought this was the most selfish thing in the world, and I really did. I came to peace about it. And I do feel like as long as people aren’t hurting other people with whatever they love doing, they should just go do it as much as they can, as hard as they can, as well as they can.

I’m all for it, because we only get this one shot, as far as I know, and I think that we should seize.

 

Staying Close After the Loss – 58:28

 

BLAIR HODGES: Sounds like you came to peace with it. In the process of learning about David, you weren’t just reading articles about what he was doing. You were also seeing information about him. You found online communities that were discussing him in particular. And I had a little bit of almost like, envy about this because I would—my dad died when I was, like, 15. I would have loved to happen upon some discussion about him and, like, from work colleagues or from, you know, people that he did stuff with. And there could be upsides and downsides to hearing what people would have to say about somebody after they die.

But I loved seeing you kind of online, going to these places where you could see what people were saying. And sometimes it was technical, like people just trying to figure out what happened to him. Okay, because this is part of what they do as these adventurers—to figure out how to survive and how to do it right.

And then other people that knew him and that really had wonderful, fond things to say about him, and you got to experience some of that community that he’d built that you weren’t aware of at all.

ANNE PINKERTON: It’s so true. And I’m so sorry you didn’t have that for your dad. It was a huge gift for me because I got to learn—it was, again, more learning about who he was and the community that he was part of.

BLAIR HODGES: Exactly.

ANNE PINKERTON: The outdoor adventurer community is really—they’re really quite something. They’re very, very tight. And there were a lot of people that my brother had touched, which was really so phenomenal to discover all by itself. And, yeah, I got to learn new things about him. I got to hear stories about him or ways that people had just seen him on a path or that he had stopped and, like, helped them bandage a blister or something, because he was always a doctor first.

So, yeah, it was really, really meaningful and powerful to be able to kind of get more of David in the aftermath. I mean, that’s the other thing about that—is I got very hungry for pictures, for stories, for anything else that was more, more, more. I was—yeah, I was really quite ravenous to just be able to get as much of that as I could. I was really greedy about it. I wanted all of it, and, boy, the internet really did provide.

And that was so cool—like, when I came on message boards on the Colorado 14ers and things like that, where people were talking about it.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

ANNE PINKERTON: And they were also really, really sad and shocked, just like I was. So also gave me another sense of feeling less alone with it.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, it was really beautiful. And it was also sort of tragic knowing that the digital footprint fades over time, that now when you Google his name, it’s—you’d have to go pretty far down in the search results, whereas before— I mean, with this passage of time—

ANNE PINKERTON: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: That we lose some of these things. So it made me wonder, how do you feel close to David today? What do you do today that makes you feel the most connected to him? It’s another way of asking, like, how are you close today? Not were you close?

ANNE PINKERTON: Well, I think again, a lot of times if I get scared about doing something, I think about him and it’s actually really motivating. Like, he’s still my big brother, which is really weird since I’ve outlived him now by years.

BLAIR HODGES: Do you remember the birthday when you did?

ANNE PINKERTON: Of course. Vividly.

BLAIR HODGES: Wasn’t that a weird thing? The birthday when I outlived my dad was—

ANNE PINKERTON: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: I don’t know. It was unlike anything I’d experienced. It was so strange.

ANNE PINKERTON: Well, it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make any sense at all. Well, it’s hard to not also acknowledge every day past that age then being like a profound gift that you must take advantage of because you are here and they are not, which is sometimes pressure, but sometimes also, you know, good.

So, yeah, the math on the whole thing is very—it’s very bizarre and hard to get your head around. Naturally, I do things outside. They are not as rigorous, but I hike with my dogs. I did buy a really nice bicycle during the pandemic and I love taking that bike on trails. They are not mountain bike trails and they are not in the mountains of Costa Rica, but they are in my neighborhood and—

And things like, I live in actually a pretty big biking community. So it’s been really fun to sort of ride bikes again, thinking about being a little kid and having him teach me. So we do hike a lot. And I think—I think more than anything, though, it’s really—it’s almost this principle of making sure that I do things I want to do, even if I think I’m not ready or the conditions aren’t perfect or I don’t have the money saved that I should, or whatever it is.

You know, I take more trips, I go to more concerts. I just do the kind of stuff that I love doing in a way that I might not have before because I was—I was being more responsible, whatever that means, or, you know, I’m trying really hard not to settle for less when I can allow myself to feel like I’m worthy of something better.

I’m trying very hard to be grateful for the time that I have and to, I guess, in the sort of the Thoreau thing, to not come to the end of my life and feel as though I have not lived.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. I feel it.

That’s Anne Pinkerton. We’re talking about her book, Were You Close? A Sister’s Quest to Know the Brother She Lost. Anne holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Bay Path University and studied poetry as an undergrad at Hampshire College. She grew up in Texas and lives now in Western Massachusetts.

 

Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises – 1:03:50

 

All right, Anne. We always like to close with regrets, challenges, and surprises. This is a moment for you to reflect on the book itself and the process of making the book and its aftermath. So is there anything that you would change about the book now that you’ve got a little bit of distance from its publication?

I believe it came out in 2023. Is that right?

ANNE PINKERTON: That’s right. You know, it’s terribly difficult as a writer to say you wouldn’t change something because—we’re writers. That said, I’m also much more in favor of, like, done is better than perfect. And I am glad that the book got done and is out there, and I don’t have any reason to revisit it in terms of the writing.

So, no, I don’t really have any regrets there. Everything about it was a challenge. So that’s—that’s a whole thing. But I talk about when I do—I do some workshops that I title Writing Through Loss, and I talk about how hard this work is and that we have to take care of ourselves and the doing.

And also that I really believe in it because it has changed my world to process things this way. And frankly, it’s changed my world to share the story with people. I started writing about David thinking that there’s no way anybody else would care about my little life and my little story of my brother.

And it turned out that, you know, I think—I hope I helped quite a lot of people feel like they weren’t crazy for feeling so sad about losing their brother or sister, that it wasn’t strange, that it took them a really long time to figure out how to carry that loss, that it’s okay to get a little obsessed about something that you’re curious about and dig in and you can find some satisfaction there?

I think the surprises have been both good and bad. The surprises that I thought I should be prepared for did not occur—like people thinking that I was just some whiny sad sack who couldn’t get over my own life experience or something—that actually never happened.

The surprises were really, the best surprises, were that I made connections with so many people, and these were readers. They were also other writers, and that it ended up—I’m working with a group of other writers about sibling loss on an anthology. And just being in a Zoom room with all these people all over the country feels so validating to everything we’ve experienced, proving there’s a readership for our stories, too, by all of us being there just sort of physically present, showing that, no, it’s not actually just one or two people who have brothers or sisters.

You know, 80% of Americans have at least one sibling.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

ANNE PINKERTON: So it’s not actually some sort of discreet, strange, you know, tiny slice of the culture that has these experiences. It’s been wildly meaningful to make connections with people. And a dear writer friend of mine asked me what success would look like for me when this book came out, and I said, if I make one other person feel less alone, I will have succeeded.
And so when I get notes from people saying that they felt seen, that they felt heard, that they felt like their experience was not some isolated thing, that’s everything. That’s been the best surprise of all—just how many bridges it felt like it built, how many connections it made. And that’s the kind of community that I want to believe in, that we are all here for each other and that we can console each other this way if we’ll just be real about what’s going on.

BLAIR HODGES: I’m so glad to hear about that project because, like we said, there’s not a ton of books that talk about sibling loss. Yours is such a good one. I feel so lucky that I came across it. I learned so much from this book, and I found so much that was familiar and so much that was new.
I love a book that does that, where I can connect and it resonates. But then I’m also—it’s opening my eyes to things I had never considered before, and your book certainly does that. I haven’t lost a sibling, and I feel like I understand it a lot more now than I did before.

So I appreciate you putting it out there, for putting yourself out there and taking that risk. Thank you, Anne, and thanks for coming. Thanks for talking to us about it, too.

ANNE PINKERTON: My pleasure. I love to talk about my brother.

 

Outro – 1:08:03

 

BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening to Relationscapes. I hope you’ll check out other episodes while you’re here. Episode 50 approaches! Which is unreal. You can help me celebrate that milestone by rating and reviewing the show in Apple Podcasts.

You know, I got 3 new reviews in June, but I didn’t get any reviews in July. I wanna see some August reviews roll in! Go to Apple Podcasts, search up Relationscapes, scroll down, tap “Rate and review,” that’s where you can do it. Or if you listen in Spotify, you can rate the show there. It’s just a star rating system. I should check out how many we have there, I don’t know…

But anyways, Mates of State provides our theme song. Relationscapes is part of the Dialogue Podcast Network. I'm journalist Blair Hodges in Salt Lake City, and I'll see you again very soon.