Losing a sibling is hard. When you lose a sibling violently, the immediate and brutal nature of the loss is jarring and, at times, life-shattering on every level imaginable. Sibling Support Network was birthed out of witnessing the lack of visibility, understanding, assistance, care, and support of people who lose their blood-related or fictive kin siblings to violent crime.

My youngest brother, John, was killed on August 14, 2013. His death is what I like to call “the straw that broke the camel's back,” as he is not the only blood-related sibling I have lost to violence. My oldest brother Javon was killed in 1993, and my cousin, who was more like a brother to me, which falls under a fictive-kin loss, was killed in 2001. It wasn’t until John’s death that I decided to stop, take a look around me, and do something to assist me in my journey because this is a journey, but to assist others who have endured this type of loss and feel like no ones understand what they are experiencing.

The network is designed to show people who have lost a blood-related or fictive kin sibling violently that we don’t have to be invisible, that we deserve to have our pain acknowledged and to get the understanding, assistance, care, and support we need to live full lives, and that there’s a community of people and services to support us. To people who are reading this, who have lost a blood-related or fictive kin sibling to a violent crime, just know that feeling better, safer, and healing doesn't have to be a silent, solo journey where you hide behind your pain or become invisible because of it. We’re here to support you.

Cheeraz Gormon, sister of John Gormon and Javon Mitchell, is a poet, storyteller, spiritual care practitioner, community health worker, and founder and executive director of Sibling Support Network.