Sara Swan Miller

An Empty Chair: Living in the Wake of a Sibling's Suicide Sara Swan Miller

At least 30,000 people kill themselves in the United States alone, most leaving behind shocked siblings. Yet, too often, the grief and bewilderment of surviving siblings is simply ignored, leaving the bereaved siblings feeling even more abandoned. The accounts of siblings' experiences in this book are based on interviews with more than thirty people from all over the United States, as well as the author's own experience of losing a sister to suicide. Just as sibling relationships are varied and complex, so the feelings and experiences of sibling suicide survivors run a long and complex gamut from deep grief, to anger, to guilt, to relief. Often these feelings are intermixed. The survivors are often bewildered by the complexity of their feelings, including reactions that may seem shameful or inappropriate. These moving accounts will help other sibling survivors of sibling suicide see that they are not alone. No matter what their feeilngs and reactions are, there are others who have shared them.