I lost my big brother, U.S. Navy Ceremonial Guardsman Macoy Hicks, to his battle with Post Traumatic Stress, Traumatic Brain Injury, and a toxic command. After serving at countless funerals in Arlington National Cemetery, he couldn’t get the family’s cries out of his head. Macoy was a 20-year-old active-duty serviceman when he died by suicide. I was 18 years old and forced to learn how to live without my only sibling. I quickly learned how invisible surviving siblings can be in society. 

As sibling survivors, we are the forgotten grievers. We are overlooked and ignored in our grief. People ask us how our parents are doing, but fail to ask us how we are. We struggle. People tell me I need to take care of my parents as though I wasn’t still a child when I lost Macoy to suicide. I was 18 years old and had to learn how to plan my big brother's funeral. I had to learn how to survive again. I had to learn how to become the same age as my big brother. I had to learn how to become older than my older brother. All of the things I have learned since losing Macoy, I should not have had to learn at a young age. Now I must grow old without the one person who should’ve been there with me through it all. The pain I endure every day is unimaginable to most young adults or non-grievers, especially because I struggle behind my smile. Just as Macoy used to, I put on a happy face and try to make it through each day, sometimes each moment, but I struggle every day to keep going. It’s hard. A life without Macoy doesn’t seem worth living, but I keep pushing one day at a time. One moment at a time.

 

I am now 23 and I will get older, but it will never get any easier because Macoy will still be dead. Throughout the rest of my life. I cannot change that, no one and nothing can, and the pain of that reality will never go away. It eats at me in different ways every day and at different levels. Some days are worse than others, but all days are hard however I keep fighting. I live on for my big bro.

 

When I was thinking about my life in 2019, when it shattered on February 11th, I had to figure out so much. College, my career path, and my future were/are all going to be changed forever. I was looking to go back to school and could not find a grant or scholarship that was specifically available to Gold Star Siblings that could at least lighten the financial burden of college off me while I was and forever will be grieving. The one or two scholarships I was able to find were combat-only death requirements meaning Macoy was not included and I was not recognized as a Gold Star Sibling, but Macoy served our country just as those service members did. 

Due to the lack of resources available for Gold Star Siblings and the challenge by my dad to create something that was not there before, I decided to create Sienna’s Gold Star Sibling Grant. This will be specifically for Gold Star Siblings, regardless of the cause of death. I created this grant for the surviving siblings who are overlooked or forgotten. We need just as much support. I’m doing this because it is necessary and hasn’t been done before. 

 

Every life saved through HicksStrong and life changed by this Grant, helps my heart heal, though it will never be the same, I will know I have made a difference.