HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
When A Sibling Is Murdered
Host: Dr. Gloria Horsley
With guest: Ben Sieff
November 10, 2005

G: I?m your host, Gloria Horsley. Welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart. We know a number of you have lost your loved one through violent crime and that you must continue to cope with the senseless act that took your child?s or sibling?s life. Some of you are still in the trial phase, and some of you are required to go to parole hearings. My guests and I know that your losses are difficult, and we are here to tell you that we have made it and so can you. Life may seem insurmountable at times, but you will laugh, have pleasure, and enjoy life again. Remember that just going about your day-to-day business is an accomplishment whether it?s working in the home or the office. Please join us on our show by calling our toll-free number 1 866-369-3742 with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life. You can also email me at gchorsley@aol.com. And remember these shows are archived on the Compassionate Friends website as well as VoiceAmerica website. I am happy to tell you that you may also purchase CDs of selected shows and you can look for those CDs at the Compassionate Friends or at my website, healingthegrievingheart.org. You can also call a toll free number, 866-964-4000 to order your CDs. Well, today our topic is ?When A Sibling is Murdered? and on this show we?ll have Ben Sieff. Ben is an artist, musician, and co-director of the Centering Corporation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education and resources for the bereaved. On this show, we?ll discuss with Ben how his brother, Tim, was murdered in 1986. Ben was a 16-year-old teenager at the time that his brother was murdered and he will give you insights into how that has impacted his life. And joining us later will be Lew Cox who is founder of the Violent Crime Victim Services located in Tacoma, Washington. Lew is also a bereaved parent and a victim advocate. Ben, welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart. So happy to have you on today.
B: Thank you.
G: Ben, can you tell us a little bit about your life, and it?s been how many years since your brother was murdered?
B: Nineteen years now.
G: Could you tell us about him and the circumstances?
B: I was 16 at the time. He was 19, almost 20. He was murdered in an unprovoked attack they called an altercation, which means a fight, but he was actually in a parking lot with a group of friends when about four young men came up in a car and started a fight with my brother and his friends. One of the kids ended up hitting my brother in the head with a jack stand and gave him a brain hemorrhage which killed him almost instantly.
G: So he was dead when he arrived at the hospital?
B: He was dead at the scene, I believe.
G: And how old was he?
B: He was 19, almost 20.
G: So he was your big brother.
B: My only big brother.
G: So could you tell us about how that impacted you as a 16 year old? It?s going back to remember, but
B: No, actually, it?s sometimes very fresh. Just being 16 is a tough time in itself and when that happened, that really turned my world upside down. I really felt like I lost a lot of foundation, a lot of stability in my life. My brother was somebody who looked out for me and I lost that in that moment.
G: Were your parents together?
B: Yes. They were at the time.
G: So your parents were together. Did you have other siblings?
B: Yes. There?s a total of 10 of us.
G: Oh, my goodness. I didn?t realize that. Where did you fit in this group?
B: He was number 1. I?m number 2. So now I?m the oldest brother and there?s 8 under me now, but I can?t remember how many there were at that time. In ?86, there must have been probably 5 or 6 of us.
G: Wow. That?s incredible. So you have quite the family and you became the oldest. How was that to suddenly be the oldest?
B: That hasn?t stopped. I guess part of me still, I don?t know if ?resents? is the right word, but it?s a difficult position to be in a family and something I wish is that I still had an older brother or sibling that I could talk to. It?s something I continue to miss but I do what I can. I try to be responsible and take care of everything I can.
G: Sounds like he was a neat brother.
B: Yeah, he was a wild brother, that?s for sure.
G: Now you?re a musician and an artist. Were you then at that time? I assume you were.
B: Yeah, definitely.
G: So you?re a pretty sensitive guy.
B: I don?t know. I can be insensitive, too.
G: I think of musicians, though, as really kind of an artist, as really taking in the scene.
B: I?m pretty expressive, I guess, would probably be the best way to say it.
G: So I was thinking, how did that impact you at his death, being in that kind of genre and feeling? Did you play music, did you do art, what did you do?
B: I did a lot of both. When my brother was alive, we actually played a couple of different shows together, a talent show in particular for my high school, and those are great memories. But just being a musician when he died, I tried to fill his shoes or keep some of his music alive, too, and so in 1987, the year after, we did our first full-length recording, it was a tape then. I always want to CD, but we did a 10-song CD. Our band was called ?Nightmare,? and it was a dedication to Tim. It was probably about 60-70% songs about that situation or that experience, the heaviness about it. It was definitely a metal band. It was very intense.
G: I love the fact that you said ?great memories,? because one of the things I want to say, particularly if we have any teens listening to this show, you?re not going to forget, are you?
B: Mm, mm. There?s no way.
G: That?s one of the big fears that we have early on is how do we keep the memories alive, but honestly, it seems that as you get further out, the memories even become stronger and sweeter, the special ones, do you think?
B: They do. One thing I try to remind myself is to remember all the things and the good and the bad and just to try and remember, I think it does an injustice to him to remember only the sweet things about him and make him into this angel. In no way was he an angel, but I remember the good things, I remember the tough times, too, and I just thing that that?s important to remember exactly who he was.
G: Absolutely. Some of the tough times are some of the most amusing, too, and some of the mistakes people have made and the dumb things they did, that?s all part of who they were. It makes them real, like you say, we don?t want just angels flying around. We want the real guy there.
B: Absolutely.
G: One of the things I want to talk to you about, I?m wondering if you cope with drug and alcohol at all because one of the three things we talk to teens about when I?m working with 9/11 families is about being careful and not taking risks. Doing sex, drugs, and alcohol are three of the ways that kids sometimes tend to cope and get off track.
B: I see that as two questions, really. One is the drug and alcohol thing. The other is taking risks. For me personally, the drug and alcohol thing wasn?t really a factor for me. My brother was a substance abuser. He had a lot of different addictions and growing up with him, I would sometimes be his caretaker and try to keep him awake at night or keep him on his side to keep him from vomiting on himself, and that kind of thing. So for me, drugs and alcohol is never really an issue for me. However, on the other end of it, the risk behaviors. Once he died, I did a lot of things that probably wouldn?t be considered safe. Walking into areas, I remember being in New York when I was 18 and just being fearless and careless about everything. Not really having any particular desire to protect myself or be safe, and I don?t know if I felt like I was invulnerable or if I just didn?t really care. I think part of it was that that loss is intense enough that you kind of wish sometimes it had been you and not your brother.
G: Or at least that you could join them. Not that you?d want to kill yourself, but just that you want to get out of the pain and might want to be with them. Or, why wasn?t it me?
B: Tough stuff, for sure.
G: Did you think at all about whether or not you could have saved him if you had been there? Or did those kinds of thoughts come up for you?
B: No, not so much. For me it was more about that particular night that he died. These are hard things to talk about. Being 16, I don?t know what the best way to say this is, but I had some very intense things going on in my life being 16 and needing that particular night to call my brother. I remember thinking about calling him that night and I had no way to get a hold of him. He was living in a different city. I never did talk to him that particular night and then that morning, of course, the cop comes to the house and tells me what happened. It was very difficult to hear. No, I don?t think if I had been there I would have been able to do anything about it.
G: Well, fast forward to today. I know that I had talked to you this summer and you were getting ready to go to court. Can you talk a little about that?
B: Yeah. This actually goes back about 3 years, give or take, I?m not exactly sure of the times. I was snooping around on the internet. Sometimes I do this pretty regularly. I?ll type in my name or I?ll type in my brother?s name or just see if there are any articles and things like that I haven?t read. I came across a website called ?Truth in Justice.? This particular website believes that the only guy that?s still in prison now for my brother?s murder didn?t commit murder. He was uninvolved in that he didn?t actually swing and actually kill my brother. He was an instigator and he was a ringleader. So he believes that this guy wasn?t guilty.
G: Let?s take a break right now. When we come back, we?ll talk about that ?Truth in Justice? on the internet that you found. We?re coming up on break, and I?m your host Dr. Gloria Horsley. Please stay tuned to hear more from Ben Sieff, artist, musician, and co-director of the Centering Corporation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education and resources for the bereaved. Ben and I have been discussing the murder of his brother, Tim, in 1986. Joining us after break will be Lew Cox, founder of the Violent Crime Victim Services located in Tacoma, Washington. Lew is a bereaved parent, victim?s advocate, and a certified trauma specialist. He is also the co-author with Dr. Bob Baugher of Coping with Traumatic Death: Homicide. You can purchase CDs of shows of Healing the Grieving Heart through theCompassionate Friends.org or by calling the toll-free number 1-877-969-0010. You can also visit me on my email at gchorsley@aol.com or go on my website at healingthegrievingheart.org.
G: Welcome to our show, Lew. It?s great to have you on. I wanted to fill you in on where we are right now. You?ve met with Ben before, right? I think when you talked to Ben, he was just getting ready to do some court work about his going to court and we were just going to get into that. Right now he?s talking to us about a site on the web called ?Truth in Justice? where he went to that site and found out that they had made some comments about his brother?s murderer, right, Ben?
B: I had sent an email to this guy who ran the site and said I appreciated his opinions but I believed his facts were incorrect and it is still his contention that the guy isn?t guilty and that?s fine, but what he did was he contacted Jeffrey Ragland?s brother (Jeffrey Ragland was the one in prison) and his brother contacted me looking for support for his release.
G: Oh. For your brother?s murderer?s release.
B: Right. Which at this point, it?s been this long, that didn?t bother me so much. I would expect that he would want to get his brother out. That doesn?t bother me. What does bother me is that I think he was trying to manipulate me. At any rate, what happened was Jeff Ragland was asking for a commutation of his sentence and whether I would support it or not, as soon as his brother figured that I wasn?t going to support it, he pretty much dropped the line. I was told at that time though that the commutation request wouldn?t be looked at for 10 years. Since then, in the State of Iowa, they have changed the laws so that you can only request a commutation I think every 5 years and before it was every year. So they ended up looking at it this year, way sooner than I was ready to really consider it.
G: And I had gone to some event Lew put on, and you were looking for somebody to be a victim?s advocate to go with you to court. Did you find someone?
B: Well, no, actually in the State of Iowa they have a group of people that that?s what they do. I was contacted by this woman who just told me what to expect, offered just to be able to sit there with me so that I didn?t feel like I was teamed up against in that situation. Told me what things I could do, whether I wanted Jeff Ragland to hear my comments or if I wanted him to not be able to see me. That kind of stuff. I thought that was neat.
G: Yeah. So this sounds familiar to you, right, Lew?
L: Oh, yes, this is what we do all the time for families.
G: Could you talk a little about what you do?
L: We are a victim?s advocate. We?re community-based in Tacoma, Washington. We service what county we reside in which is Pierce County. It?s a county of 7-800,000 people. Unfortunately, Tacoma statistically, they?re the third most violent city on the West Coast per capita besides Los Angeles and Oakland, California. So we have a lot of homicide incidents. So we?re in court a lot, and we provide court support for families during the hearings, arraignments and through trials. We have a fair amount of capital cases here which take perhaps three to three-and-a-half years to get to trial so there?s a lot of pre-trial hearings and so we go with those families to those pre-trial hearings. We help prepare them for the long trial.
G: Now, do you hang in with them at all over time?
L: Yes.
G: Because I?m wondering, Ben, how would that be for you to have somebody, these people you are in touch with, are they available if you need to talk to them?
B: Well, I?ve got her number. Her name is Sarah McMillan and I can call her if I have any other questions or as he continues to look for release, I?ll probably be in touch with her again.
G: What do you see, Lew, as the most difficult thing for people like Ben being in these situations?
L: First of all, when something like this happens, a family member is murdered, they?re completely stunned, and most people don?t have involvement with the criminal justice system other than maybe a district court parking ticket, speeding ticket, or something like that. But the criminal justice system in and of itself is an industry that moves on its own time and wheels and it can take a family and just literally chew them up and spit them out for lack of a better term and it?s very devastating to them. So what we do is we help them navigate that system and a part of our service is crisis intervention so sometimes within days after a family member has been murdered, we come in and meet with the family and give them a run down of our services and what we will offer them, and our services are free because we?re a non-profit organization. And give them information on the criminal investigation, the courts, how they work, what are the possibilities here, is this a death penalty case, is this first degree, second degree murder. We give them all that information that they?re hungry for but really don?t have the contact with the system to be able to get all their questions answered. So we will help prepare them.
G: So, Ben, how does that feel for you to hear him say that, I assume you did not have that kind of support, or you did?
B: Now or back then? You?re talking about the trial and everything?
G: Back then?
B: You want me to be honest? I don?t remember much about those years at all. In many ways I intentionally turned off whatever was going on. It was too much to handle and so I chose just not to get involved. I don?t think those services were available to my parents or I know there was victim?s assistance and that kind of thing, but not advocacy. It?s a totally new thing. It felt so good to go in there and have somebody that just felt like was holding my hand and showing me how it?s going to work.
G: I?m thinking that maybe you wouldn?t have turned off quite so much if you had the support to do it as a family.
B: Yes. I think that?s probably true.
G: Lew, do you see yourself bringing in the family and Ben at the time was 16. What do you think the challenges are for the kids and family?
L: Well, at 16, teenagers have the most difficult challenges when something like this happens in their family. They?re just breaking loose and developing their own identity of 16 and to go to a support group or go through counseling is not a peer thing to do because you might get a reputation that you have to go to a shrink and so you won?t do that. And the teenager doesn?t have the maturity to process something like this. So consequently, they try to compartmentalize it, ignore it as much as possible, and go on with their daily life as a teenager.
G: I would think Ben, for you, it?s hard. How many years was it before the trial took place and all that?
B: Well, that happened pretty quickly. I do remember at least pieces of it. I?ve seen some videotape of news footage later. For me, that really wasn?t the focus, the trial and all that. The focus for me was that my brother was gone and nothing that the trial was going to do was going to change that.
G: But also trying to be a normal teenager, right?
B: Oh, I was definitely not normal. I?ll tell you what. One thing that happened is I ended up fighting with my dad quite a bit, more than usual, I should say, and ended up going into the hospital. Well, I can?t say I got a lot of services in the hospital then.
G: Are you talking about mental or physical?
B: Well, emotional stuff. I had emotional stuff going on but it was basically not getting along at home and being sent to the hospital was kind of a form of punishment is kind of how it felt. So when I went to the hospital, what was different then is that they didn?t have services just for teens or just for children. It was all lumped together. I was with adults. I was with rapists. I was with people with schizophrenia and all kinds of different eating disorders. We were all on one floor of a hospital. It was pretty terrifying. I know now, with what I do with work and everything, that?s changed a lot and they have a lot of services available that weren?t then so I can?t really say personally whether I have any experience with that but I?m sure that it?s different.
G: It?s interesting because sometimes normal grief and I think, Lew, you probably recognize this, too, with teenagers can look pretty scary and it can be normal but we have to stop them from doing anything that is harmful to themselves or others. But some of the emotional stuff is normal, wouldn?t you say, Lew, or what would you think about it?
L: They are. They?re normal behaviors under the traumatic circumstances but outside that, people would look at it as abnormal behavior. So there?s a lot of behavior, especially with teenagers, that?s going to come out laterally and so if they?re not attended to and nurtured in a proper way and somebody understanding that they?re experiencing a traumatic event, then eventually they can get themselves into a lot of trouble physically and emotionally.
B: Mm, hm. I agree with that.
G: So Ben, what happened? How did you snap out of it or get out of it or move out of it? Was it a slow process or did you have any defining moments?
B: I can tell you it took about 10 years before I could openly talk about it. At the same time, I was very much expressing myself through music and writing songs and things like that. If you saw a picture of me then, you can definitely see I was going through it. It was some very dark times for me. I didn?t openly talk about it, but I was expressing myself very fiercely. I was just a huge ball of fire.
G: But you didn?t do drugs or alcohol.
B: Well, you know, I drank just like anybody else would.
G: But you didn?t go over the
B: No, it wasn?t related to that. No. But it took 10 years to really work through it and that?s an awful lot of work to get through something like that and feel like all of a sudden, I think at that 10 year point for me, it might have been 9 years or so, I felt like this weight was lifted off my shoulders and it was a very physical feeling that happened and I don?t think I could have forced it to happen. I just think I needed to keep working like I was doing.
G: So what would you say to those teens out there?
B: Just to hang in there and just to keep doing what you gotta do to be healthy and to allow yourself to do it and not to listen to other people. Even though I?m telling somebody this right now. Not to listen to other people?s expectations of what it is that they need to be doing as far as getting over something. And I think it?s very insulting when somebody tells you you need to get over it.
L: There?s an old adage here, Gloria and Ben, and that is in traumatic grief, you deal with it now or you deal with it later.
G: That?s a good point. Can we bring that point up ? deal with it now or deal with it later ? as soon as we come back from break? We?re coming up on break and please stay tuned with us for more from Ben Sieff, artist, musician, and co-director of the Centering Corporation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education and resources for the bereaved. And we have been discussing the murder of Ben?s brother, Tim, in 1986 and joining us on this show is Lew Cox, founder of the Violent Crime Victim Services located in Tacoma, Washington. Lew is a bereaved parent, victim?s advocate and a certified trauma specialist. He is also the co-author with Dr. Bob Baugher of Coping with Traumatic Death: Homicide. Again, I want to remind you that you can purchase selected CDs of Healing the Grieving Heart through theCompassionateFriends.org or by calling the toll-free number 1-877-969-0010. For a limited time, you can purchase a set of 10 CDs valued at $60 for an introductory price of $45. You can also email me at gchorsley@aol.com or visit my website at healingthegrievingheart.org.
Lew, before we get talking about Tim?s death and about victim services, could you tell us how to get your book?
L: You can go to Violent Crime Victim Services website which would be vcvs.org and on the front page of the website, there is a copy of the front page of our book. You can click on there and it will give you the information on how to order that book.
G: Okay and you can also email me at gchorsley@aol.com and I can give you that information. So when we were going to break, you were making a comment about you either grieve now or later, I think, Lew, is that it?
L: Yes. In the experience I?ve had working with hundreds of families over the last 15 years of homicide survivors is that those who will dive into it and deal with it, you know, immediately. We have a support group that meets once a month exclusively for survivors of homicide victims and there are some people that can?t wait to get into the support group and start dealing with it. And there are others, it?s a constant challenge for them to come. It?s so painful that it?s difficult for them to deal with it. If they don?t deal with it, whether it?s a teenager or an adult, it will catch up with you and when it catches up months or years later, you?re going to have more adverse effects than if you start dealing with it right away. Now, teenagers, rarely do I ever see them deal with it right away. Typically, they deal with it like Ben has.
G: And kind of more acting it out. One of the things, you know, teens have got hormones driving them also. There?s a lot going on with teens anyway developmentally that sometimes I think, would you say, Ben, that you had to ignore some of the stuff just to live and do your life?
B: Well, it?s hard to explain, really. It?s not so much that I wasn?t dealing with it. I can just speak for myself here. It wasn?t that I wasn?t dealing with it, it was that I was choosing how to deal with it.
G: That?s a great way to put it. That you were choosing how to deal with it.
B: They told me in the hospital that I was in denial and I didn?t believe that was true because I did believe that it was disrespectful to so quickly forget about my brother and to say that he was dead, for me just to actually verbally say it, was too much. It was too disrespectful. So I didn?t. I wouldn?t say that. So if you had asked me to tell you that I couldn?t do it or I wouldn?t do it is probably the better way to say it. But it didn?t mean that I wasn?t working through those things. I was painting. I was talking about it. In fact, I was talking about it quite a lot, but often the teen, certainly me, talking to adults or talking to our parents wasn?t necessarily the choice that we?d make. In fact, a lot of people that I know that were teens that have gone through this, their parents would be the last people that they would want to share their grief with, or share their experiences, or anything like that. I think the children, not just teens, but children in particular, bereaved children feel like they can?t really compete with their parents? loss, so they just don?t even go there. Because if I talk to my dad about it, he?s gonna start crying. He?s gonna be, it?s all about him all of a sudden.
G: Right, exactly. The forgotten mourner, they often called it.
B: Yes. And I think that?s fine. I think that?s natural and I think that?s how it is. But I think it just needs to be said and understood so that when you were talking about a teen, they?ve got to find an outlet somewhere. When you talk about destructive behaviors, you talk about things they do that are unhealthy, those often are teens who don?t find an outlet whether it?s through creating things like music or art, or if it?s just talking to friends. If they?ve got nobody to talk to and they shut down completely, those are dangerous things. So just because they?re not talking to an adult or a parent doesn?t mean that they?re not talking about it. And there are a lot more avenues available for teens today than there were back then.
G: Right. And what are some of the avenues that you do, Lew, with teens if they won?t talk and they don?t come to meetings? What do you suggest to parents?
L: Ben is right. Siblings know that the loss is a different slant with the parents than it is with them. So consequently, and my own children did that to me.
G: Let?s see, Lew, I think your daughter was murdered, right?
L: Yes in 1987. And my other daughters would not bring it up, would not allow me to bring it up. If I did, they would get real sick because what they thought is they wanted to protect me. They wanted me not to break down. And so as long as they could avoid talking about that, they wouldn?t see dad or mom break down. But it actually is just the opposite. We want to talk about it. We want to talk to them about it and we are okay with that. It?s okay for all of us to break down. And this is what we try to tell folks when we do crisis intervention with them. To be aware of the family dynamics in this particular area. But Ben is right in that even though they?re not talking to their parents, which is very difficult to do for the reasons I just mentioned, is that they are talking. They?re talking to perhaps other siblings that they have or friends. But they are talking.
G: Hopefully they are, but as Ben says, they?d better be. Hopefully they can find somebody to talk to about it.
B: Well one thing that?s really changed, I think, is schools right now, as I?m seeing a lot of it. Back in 1986 our school counselor was a guidance counselor there to help us find colleges, there to help us deal with, I?m not sure exactly what else they offered. But they weren?t there in order for ? if I went in there because I was having a bad day and I said I need to just sit down and talk, that wasn?t available to me. And the training that school counselors are given now is often real counseling and it?s available for teens now and I think teens can go into the counseling office and sit down and talk about what?s going on.
G: And some of them even have groups if they?re interested in it so there are a lot of things going on right now.
B: They?ve come a long ways.
G: I know when my son was killed, my daughter put a walkman on her head and said at the time, ?time out,? basically. But I know from working with the 9/11 families, one of the things that we find is that teens can talk about it. They can hear their sibling?s name mentioned but not for long periods. Keep it short. They are grieving and they don?t want people knocking on their door trying to come in or trying to make them grieve. People grieve on their own time. When we go on break, we?re going to lose Lew, he?s going to leave us. Before that happens, Lew, I wanted to ask you how people can get it touch with a victim?s advocate. I know I had someone from the Midwest who I put in touch with another victim?s advocate, but how would you suggest people do it if they?re from Ohio or Minnesota or something?
L: That?s a good question and I?m glad you asked me because people can call the National Center for Victims of Crime in Washington, DC, which is 1-800-211-7996. There is no list that is available in the community for those typical support groups. Where you can find them is through the National Center for Crime in DC. They can put you in touch with the groups that they are aware of in different cities. You can call the prosecutor?s office or the district attorney?s office of that city and they will know if there are any advocate groups for victims of violent crime.
G: Lew, thanks a lot for being on the show, and you can also email me at gchorsley@aol.com. I can get in touch with Lew if you are in need of an advocate or information on that. Thanks a lot for being on the show, Lew.
L: Thanks for having me.
G: Please stay tuned for more comments and advice from our guest Ben Sieff, artist, musician, and co-director of the Centering Corporation. If you would like to email me about this or upcoming shows, my email is gchorsley@aol.com and my website is healingthegrievingheart.org. Ben, when we come back, I?d like to know if there?s anything you?d like to talk about, any areas you feel like we?ve missed discussing, and I would also like to talk to you about the Centering Corporation and the wonderful work that you people do there. I wanted to remind people that they can get my CDs through my website, healingthegrievingheart.org or they can go to Compassionate Friends website and order them and right now they are $45, a value of $60, and we?re giving a special introductory offer.
Ben, Are there any particular points you feel like we?ve missed?
B: No. I think we?re doing fine. I think it?s an important subject and there?s still a lot of work that needs to be done.
G: It?s great having you on the show and I love the fact that you?re talking about being a teen because a lot of people who lost siblings as teens have a little bit of trouble even now. So it?s wonderful to hear you out there talking about it. Could you talk a little about the Centering Corporation that you?re involved with, you?re co-director?
B: Yes, I am. I started after Tim died. I actually met Marvin and Joy Johnson who founded the Centering Corporation and I started doing little illustrations for their newsletters. They had a couple of vignettes that I illustrated for them, and kind of got me going that way. I did that for a couple of years until I was 18 when I moved down to Omaha and started working full-time with them. It?s been an interesting run of things. Centering Corporation is a non-profit company and we?re basically in education. Even though we?re a publishing company, we try to teach people about grief and healthy ways of dealing with it. So it?s been a good vehicle for me to help advocate teen loss or teen grief booklets and resources that you can use. Things that weren?t very available back then.
G: You?ve launched a journal, Grief Digest?
B: Yes, actually, Grief Digest is a new magazine that we came up with last year. It?s actually my wife, Janet?s, publication that she came up with and she?s working with Andrea Gambill, who is our editor, and that?s just been a really nice collection of different kinds of stories for everybody?for bereaved people, for professionals, for educators. We use a shot gun approach with that just trying to get as much information available out there.
G: One of the really neat things I saw when I went to the website for the Centering Corporation, and how do we get to that website, what is it?
B: www.centering.org.
G: But one of the really neat things when I went to the site is the fact that if you want to put an article in the magazine, they actually tell you about the length and they?re happy to have you submit them which is really unusual.
B: It?s not a closed. We get submissions from all over the country and in some cases other countries as well. It?s very open to people?s input and ideas and anybody who has a unique vision is more than welcome to write in and try to use it as a voice.
G: I think it?s really neat to be that open with it. As an author I know sometimes it?s hard to get your ideas out there and find people that are interested in even considering publication of them so it?s a wonderful thing that you?re doing that. Well, you?ve had 19 years now to think about it and what would you recommend to others who have had a sibling murdered?
B: There are so many things I would say now. If I go back to being 16 again, I would just try to be open to what is going through and think of it as an experience and to really cherish and savor all of it?even the bad tastes?all the things that are there and really submerse themselves in it and to explore and learn from it. That?s what I would do now knowing that I was kind of running away from it as much as I could back then.
G: So you?d really try to be more involved in it if you could as a teen.
B: Yes, and I?m not saying how to, I?m not saying you have to go to a counselor and that kind of thing. But I am definitely saying know what it is that they?re going through, and not just through grief, but through other things that they?re experiencing just being those ages in particular.
G: The Compassionate Friends organization, which is the largest self-help organization in the world, is offering sibling support now where they didn?t in the past. But in the past few years, they?ve got some wonderful sibling groups and things going on online and the national conference, which will be in July. There will be siblings there, and I?ve been very impressed with those kids at the conferences.
B: Yes. They?re a great group. They really are. I?ve had a chance to work with them as well and that?s been a really rewarding experience.
G: What kinds of things have you done with them there?
B: I?ve done workshops. Oh, a couple three years ago, I was a sibling chair for the national conference and trying to come up with different kinds of activities and a man named Danny has really helped out in doing a lot of the work and showing me what was needed for those groups and to try and entertain them as well as. The big difference is it?s sort of like a, for parents to go into a support group, it?s not so much about entertaining as it is about going in and working through the loss, but for teens and for the children, as well, you?ve got to give them something to chew on and then something to work through and then give them something fun to do. It?s not all about darkness and devastation and all that.
G: Absolutely. It?s so much fun to see those kids all having fun together and having permission from each other to be able to have fun again.
B: Yeah, you know what, when I was 16 and that happened, I felt completely isolated. Even my best friends I couldn?t really talk to about it. I would repeat things over and over again and they would ask me to stop. It was uncomfortable for everybody and I think that?s the neat thing about support groups is you?re around people that at least have some kind of idea of what it is you?re going through. They, of course, don?t know exactly what it is but you don?t feel like you?re in this wasteland of no one?s around there to be supportive. It?s a totally different feeling to know that there?s other people who have gone through difficult things, too.
G: And one of the things that I think is neat, too, is people have gone through it at different stages so you might be bereaved maybe six months or something and you might be with somebody where it?s been three years. So you see the different stages and they can also empathize with where you are.
B: One piece of advice that I would say to a bereaved teen right now is to not be judgmental and not to let people be judgmental to you either. What I?m talking about is the grief stuff. Just don?t tell people how it should be or what it is that they should be going through or how long it should take, and don?t do that to yourself, I guess would be the more important part of it. Don?t tell yourself that you?ve got to be doing anything in particular. You shouldn?t tell yourself that it?s been a year and that you should be over it by now. If you feel like you?re over it, then you probably are. If you don?t feel like you?re over it, then you?ve still got a lot of work to do.
G: Right. And we all got caught in those Kubler-Ross stages?anger, denial, depression, acceptance?but what people don?t realize is that she was talking about people who were terminally ill in the hospital. It?s really a different model and we?re starting to realize that now.
B: It?s part of it and I don?t think that?s what her intention was on it. I think she?s talking about those being pieces of a much bigger thing. I think people just use that out of context.
G: Well it?s time to close our show and I want to thank my guest, Ben Sieff. Ben, it?s just been fabulous having you on the show. You?re an adorable person and I just really cherish my friendship with you.
B: Thank you, Gloria. I?ve got one thing I wanted to say that I forgot to tell you about. We?ve got a website that?s up that?s called www.fireinmyheart.com. It?s specifically for bereaved teens. There are different kinds of things they can do on that. Just to look into that if they?d like.
G: Oh, okay, fireinmyheart.com. Well, thanks for being on the show. And please stay tuned again next week when our topic will be ?Where Does Sadness End and Depression Begin After the Death of a Child? with Dr. Robert R. Thompson who wrote the book Remembering the Death of a Child which won a national book award in 2003. You can purchase selected CDs of Healing the Grieving Heart through thecompassionatefriends.org or by calling the toll free number 1 877-969-0010. For a limited time, you can purchase the set for a value of $60 for only $45. You can also email me at my website at healingthegrievingheart.org. These shows are archived on www.Health.VoiceAmerica.com as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org websites. This is Dr. Gloria Horsley. Please stay tuned again next Thursday at 9:00 Pacific Standard Time, 12:00 Eastern, for more of Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and renewal and support. Remember, others have been there before you and made it. You can too. You need not walk alone. Thanks for listening. I?m Dr. Gloria Horsley.

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