Beech Tree News Network

About 80 to 90% of all persons in the United States have at least one birth sibling, and this excludes step-siblings or adoptive siblings (http://www.siblingsforever.com/sibling_facts). During childhood and perhaps adulthood, our sibling relationships teach us much about socialization.

Others have had much to say about siblings. A few of those quotes are included below:
•    Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet. – Vietnamese Proverb
•    Lord help the mister that comes between me and my sister... – Irving Berlin
•    A brother is a friend given by Nature. – Jean Baptiste Legouve
•    If you want to know how your girl will treat you after marriage, just listen to her talking to her little brother. – Sam Levenson
•    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 other's 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
•    I’ve never had siblings, I didn’t grow up in a big family; it was just me and my single mom. And, hectic family dysfunction was actually something that I craved. – Emmy Rossum
•    Sibling relationships - and 80 percent of Americans have at least one - outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust. –  Erica E. Goode
•    I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at. – Maya Angelou

I have five siblings: four brothers and a sister. I treasure these people; they are precious to me. And, thankfully, my three daughters have a close sibling relationship and are friends as well. In my experience, siblings can argue and get over it – as long as no one else steps into the ‘debate.’ After all, siblings have argued (or not) all of their lives. A friend recently lost her last living parent, and the executor of the estate is a son-in-law. This man has some problems: the children are disagreeing. In this instance, he is the outsider, and some ugly ‘debates’ have ensued.

Recently, I read that the loss of a sibling may be devastating: “The phenomenon of disenfranchised grief has been identified with sibling loss, because the unique depth of that loss is typically not recognized by others in the same way other types of familial loss are” (http://www.siblingsforever.com/sibling_facts). Thankfully, I have not experienced this, although my late husband’s siblings have. Sibling loss causes pronounced grief.

Desmond Tuto said, “You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.” And, the Bible says, “Love never fails….” (1 Corinthians 13:8, NIV). Although the sibling relationship might be complex, it may also be a life-long blessing.