“Everyone asks how the parents are doing. Nobody asks how the siblings are doing.”
In this episode, I sit down with author, speaker, counselor, and sibling grief advocate Zander Sprague for a deeply honest conversation about sibling loss, overlooked grief, and what it means to carry someone forward after tragedy.
Zander’s older sister Lucy was murdered in 1996. Nearly thirty years later, he’s helping sibling survivors feel seen through his writing, counseling, advocacy work, and communities like The Compassionate Friends and TCF Sibs.
We talk about:
- why sibling grief is so often overlooked
- the loneliness of becoming “the forgotten mourner”
- grief ambushes and emotional triggers
- what it means to let grief shape you without defining you
- why people never truly “get over” losing someone they love
- the power of community after loss
- how remembering someone keeps them alive in our lives
At its core, this episode is about recognition.
About finally hearing: “I see you. Your grief matters too.”
Connect with Zander:
- Website: ZanderSprague.com
- Instagram: @epic_begins
- YouTube: @epicbegins
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ZanderSprague
- Books: Epic Begins With 1 Step Forward
- Making Lemonade: Choosing A Positive Pathway After Losing Your Sibling
- Why Don’t They Cry?: Understanding Your Living Child’s Grief
Resources: robertdelfave.com
Free audio series: Not Alone —robertdelfave.com
Book a free discovery call: robertdelfave.com
The Carried Forward Podcast is hosted by Robert DelFave, grief coach, David Kessler Certified Grief Educator, and author of The Other Side of This.
New episodes released regularly.
What is Carried Forward?
Grief doesn't end, it transforms.
The Carried Forward Podcast is a conversation-driven show about what happens after loss. Not the moment of loss itself, but the long, slow, often invisible work of rebuilding identity, meaning, and purpose on the other side of it.
Host Robert DelFave is a grief coach, author, and someone who lost both parents young. He sits down with grief professionals, researchers, therapists, authors, and thought leaders to ask the questions his clients are living with every day. What does carrying grief forward actually look like? How do you rebuild who you are on the other side of this?