What’s it like to have a sibling who died before you were born?

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What’s it like to know you had a sibling you’ve never known personally? What is it like to see your family mourn and remember that person?

Comments

  1. Big_Mama_80 Avatar

    I had a sister who died before I was born. My mother chose not to tell me and my other sister.

    My grandmother was the one who let the beans slip when my sister and I were teenagers. We were shocked to find out everything, to say the least.

    I wasn’t really angry with my mother for not telling us. She just had a different viewpoint of it all than we did. She found the idea of funerals and mourning people’s deaths to be morbid. She figured it would do us no good to know about a sibling that passed before we came into the world.

    Later, my own mother developed lung cancer, and she chose not to tell me either. I found out all in one night that she had terminal lung cancer, was put on a ventilator, and died.

    I guess she figured things like that weren’t important. She was never afraid of dying. In fact, I always felt like she was just strangely waiting to die. 🤷‍♀️

  2. The_Spectacle Avatar

    he was born prematurely and died at only ten days old, but whenever the topic came up the room got pretty uncomfortable.

    the nuttiest part is that I was born one year later on the same day he died. I don’t think about it much because it happened before I was born and everything but when I think about how I have a brother who died on my birthday, that’s kind of crazy

  3. ReadySetTurtle Avatar

    This isn’t exactly what you’re asking, but it’s been on my mind lately, so I’m going to word vomit it out.

    I was under two years old when my baby brother died during birth. The mourning was different, the way we remember him as a family is different, because he didn’t get a chance at life. There’s not much to talk about or remember. I’m currently holding onto a memory box for my mom with some keepsakes in it, she hasn’t opened it in years and while I’m curious to know exactly what’s in it, it feels wrong to open it. He might come up in conversation occasionally (naturally, like my mom describing how her pregnancies differed), but we don’t do anything on his birthday.

    I think about the what ifs sometimes. What he would have been like as a person. What kind of relationship we might have had. I have another brother, born four years after me. Would my parents still have had him. My mom always wanted three (though my dad didn’t really) so I don’t think my living brother ever feels like he’s a replacement. How would our lives be different. The way my dad handled the situation really damaged their marriage, though my mom let it simmer, so the divorce was years after. Would my mom have had less hate for him, would she have still left him but more amicably.

    It’s just one of those things in life that could change so much. And you’ll never be able to find out.

  4. C1sko Avatar

    I found out 40+ years later…so I don’t feel anything.