Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn
Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn is the author of The Empty Room: Surviving Sibling Loss, a memoir and journalistic exploration of sibling loss. Her brother, Ted, suffered from a rare immune deficiency disorder and spent 8 years in an isolation room behind a plastic curtain before he died. He was one of two boys upon whom the movie “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble” was based. She is a contributing writer for More magazine, and has also written for Self, Discover, Psychology Today and Harper’s Bazaar, among other publications. Elizabeth is currently working on a new book, The Death of Cancer, with her father, Dr. Vincent T. DeVita. She lives in New York City with her husband, writer Paul Raeburn, and her son, Henry. To learn more about Elizabeth and her work go to: www.devitaraeburn.com or visit her blog: www.tedishere.blogspot.com Elizabeth appeared on the radio show “Healing the Grieving Heart” discussing the Death of a Sibling. To hear her interviewed by Dr. Gloria & Dr. Heidi Horsley, click on the following link: www.voiceamericapd.com/health/010157/horsley070705.mp3
Articles:
Poem: For George
I received this astonishing poem in the mail, along with a letter from the author, Robin Standish, in 2005. Unfortunately, it got lost in the pile of papers on my […]
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Film Review: “Ghosted”
All I needed to hear about the movie, “Ghosted,” was that it explored the aftermath of grief and loss and, of course, I was interested. Having lost my brother when I […]
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Film Review: Departures
“Departures” is the story of Daigo Kobayashi, a passionate cellist with a dream job in an orchestra, who finds himself abruptly out of job — and in huge debt for […]
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How Does Sibling-Loss Affect One’s Parenting?
By Elizabeth Devita-Raeburn — If you poke around in sibling loss literature, one unanswered question you come across is–does losing a sibling make sibling survivors more or less likely to […]
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Holden Caufield: Still relevant?
First off, I love J.D. Salinger and all of his books. So I was surprised when, as my step-kids went through that particular reading phase in high school when they […]
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Gorgeous short movie about the loss of two siblings—check it out
So, a few months back, I gave a talk about sibling loss at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. As you might imagine, there tend to be quite a few bereft […]
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What is Disenfranchised Grief?
When I was 14, my brother and only sibling, Ted, died. One of my more memorable experiences from that time is of standing next to his grave, watching, devastated, as […]
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What a Coincidence!
Yesterday I posted on a new study that looked at the impact of losing an infant sibling when you were very young, or even before you were born. I commented […]
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The Impact of Losing an Infant Sibling
When I was working on my book, I interviewed a couple of people who either lost siblings very early in that sibling’s life, i.e. in infancy (and were thus very […]
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