CONTENT WARNING: Please note that this episode contains depictions and stories of siblings lost by suicide, homicide and/or domestic violence. We understand that some people may find these triggering, activating and/or disturbing. Angela is the oldest sibling of five children and she became a surviving sibling 20 years ago when her brother Nicky passed. Nicky’s story begins after he was in a severe car accident and developed an addiction from being on strong medications for pain. He was in and out of rehab a few times until one day Angela received “the call”, where a police officer informed her that her brother had passed. Years after losing Nicky, she was coming back from a camping trip and received the second call, where they told her she had suddenly lost her second sibling, Steven, to a heart attack. 

Angela’s most recent loss is her sister Cindy. Angela lost Cindy due to a fentanyl overdose. Like Nicky, Cindy was in and out of rehab and she was trying to put her life back together again. She was trying to make better choices for herself and her children. Unfortunately, she took fentanyl without knowing and overdosed.

In this week's episode, Angela shares how her family was growing up, how her siblings have struggled with drug use, her story with Nicky, Steven, and Cindy, how becoming a surviving sibling has affected her, and the lessons she has learned from such a long grief journey.

Season 3 is brought to you by SibsForever.org, a virtual platform to commemorate and honor your sibling relationship. Create your free profile and start building beautiful commemorative web pages that can include photo and video galleries featuring you and your sibling.

In this episode I’m covering:

• Intro [00:00:00]

• Angela and Nicky's story [00:02:45] 

• Giving news to her children [00:13:23]

• Angela's and Steven story [00:16:56] 

• Angela and Cindy's story [00:26:12] 

• Getting "The Call" [00:40:41]

• Family dynamics and more loss [00:51:08] 

• Cindy's cause of death [00:55:14]

• Bringing awareness to the fentanyl epidemic [00:57:34]

• Advice for other surviving siblings [01:03:50]

For full episode show notes and transcript, click here

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