An "Awkward Grief" for Her Half-Brother-in Life and in Death

"The two had the same father, but a strained and distant relationship. Patti's mother, Nancy Reagan, kept the children from her husband's first marriage at arm's length from the children she shared with Reagan. As adults, half-siblings Michael and Patti were further divided by their opposing political views, clashing over such matters as abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and gun issues. As Davis wrote in her essay: "The Reagan family has always lived on fractured earth, wide gullies and uncrossable rivers between us.""

""With his passing," she wrote in her essay, published in Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper, "the grief I feel has an uncomfortable familiarity to it, as if it's an extension of grief I've lived with most of my life. A brother with whom I wasn't able to have a relationship. A family of people who really didn't know much about one another.""

Patti Davis experienced grief after the death of half-brother Michael Reagan despite a distant, strained relationship and limited personal connection. Nancy Reagan kept children from the first marriage separate from the children she shared with Ronald Reagan, contributing to lifelong distance. As adults the half-siblings clashed over political issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and guns, and lacked shared traditions or memories. The mourning centered on the relationship that never developed rather than consoling recollections. Kenneth Doka's term disenfranchised grief describes hidden sorrow over losses that lack social recognition, including pre-existing estrangement and stigmatized deaths.

Read at Psychology Today