Some of our greatest and most treasured memories are those of spending time with our brothers and sisters as children. We remember the ways we would play, the ways we would fight, and the ways we would love each other.
However, instead of looking back on fond memories, the people in the following stories are left with one lingering question - What If? What if their brothers and sisters would have been alive when they were growing up. How would things be different? How would they be the same?
Instead of those happy memories, these storytellers are left with the memories of never knowing the siblings that died before they had a chance to meet them.
(Content has been edited for clarity.)
Playing The Biggest Game Of “What If”
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“My brother died a little over a year before I was born. He died less than an hour after he was born.
We go out to visit his grave and it was normal for me when I was little. I didn’t understand why my parents were so sad, though, or why he was gone.
My mom still cries. Once when I was about 9 years old, she told me that she wished she had died instead of him. I said, ‘But then you wouldn’t have had me.’
She said, ‘I know.’ That one hurt.
Sometimes, I wonder what life would be like if he had survived. Would I get along with him? Would we have a bigger house? Would he have joined the football team, like my dad and my other brother? Would I have been born?
It’s not fair when you think about it. He isn’t here for holidays. We can’t buy him presents or a cake for his birthday. He never got his drivers license. He would be graduating high school in a few weeks.
Sometimes, I can’t help but feel like I’m just a replacement for him, and I feel bad about it. He should be here.”
“Try Not To Die So Soon”
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“My brother died at 18 months from a leukemia-related disease. My sister was born ten months later, and I arrived two years after her. If I’m being honest, and I would never tell my parents this, but they really didn’t handle it well as far as I was concerned. When we do talk about it, I let them know that I can never understand how deeply devastated they were and that I turned out alright, so all is forgiven.
I’m in my early 40s now and my mom and I had a pretty long talk about it a couple of years ago and she is cognizant of the mistakes she made, but she doesn’t apologize for them. She was a young mother completely messed up from the loss of her first baby. She let me know that because I was a boy (like my brother), that she just assumed I was going to die. In fact, she told me that her very first words to me were, ‘Try not to die too soon.’
My father constantly compared me to my brother, even when I was much older than my brother had ever lived to be, saying things like, ‘Your brother wouldn’t have done that,’ or, ‘Your brother liked orange juice, why don’t you?’ It was pretty messed up.
They would also spoil my sister rotten and do very little for me to the point where even she, who was a pretty selfish kid in her own right, would call them on it, and they would just say that I didn’t need things as much.
Keep in mind that this was all totally normal for me as I was of inside it, and I later realized that it, among with some other behaviors, were pretty abusive, but I’m accepting of my past and the things I had no control over because there’s not much point in being mad about it now.
I ended up being a highly introverted and independent child, and now that I’m an adult, I’ve developed into one of the kindest and capable people in my circles, so it all turned out pretty well I suppose.
I wouldn’t wish losing a child on anyone because my parents are still messed up over it four decades later.”
She Struggled With Whether Or Not To Have Another Baby
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“I am the youngest child. I have an older sister and would have had a brother between us had he lived.
My sister was born when my mother was 36. She was a physician and wanted to have an established career before children. She had a healthy baby and life was good. Four months later, my mother became pregnant again, with my brother, and all seemed well throughout the pregnancy. He was born on my sister’s first birthday.
He was born blind, deaf, paralyzed from legs down, and had a myriad of internal injuries and conditions that I can’t recall. Nothing had been detected through ultrasounds and testing.
He was hooked up to monitors, but he died three days later, the day after my mother’s birthday. Her doctors (and colleagues) had never seen anything like it; no one had. My mother agreed to let a few hospitals – two in the U.S. and one in England – take samples of his tissue to try to understand what went horribly wrong. She drove herself crazy trying to understand what had happened.
Just about two years later, she became pregnant with me, and she told me she had struggled with whether or not to have an abortion because she didn’t think she could handle it again. She had to go on anti-depressants because of it all.
Clearly, she decided not to, but she was always melancholy. She never really took pictures of me even though she had hundreds of my sister from the first year before my brother was born. She was very apprehensive about sharing too much with the family because some of them hadn’t reacted well to the first incident.
She eventually left the medical field about five years later and was a stay at home mom until my sister and I moved out. She was on anti-depressants for about 15 years, came off them, then a month later, my grandma, her mother, died. Then her dog who was her best friend. One year later, my father died of cancer after having only been diagnosed two weeks prior.
My mother is a wonderful woman, but growing up it always felt that she was never truly happy. I had a bit of a complex as my parents were only going to have two children, and I am only around because my brother died. My mother and I would butt heads often, and when I was younger I thought it was because she resented me.”
He Never Knew A Normal Mom
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“I come from a family of five – four older brothers, with me (a female) being the youngest.
In between child two and three, my mother had two stillborn babies. The depression my mother endured triggered her to have schizophrenia. My father didn’t know how to make her normal again, so he kept giving her children thinking that would help.
I never knew a normal mother. She would tell me that ‘the dark put her babies in plastic trash bags and set them on fire.’ She would often bring me to her room and show me the triangles that the aliens left on her legs when she was taken the night before. One time, she put a pillow over my head and when she finally came to realize what she was doing, she said, ‘Oh, I thought you liked that game.’ She would also sit in the back of my classroom when I went to school and not tell the teacher why she was there, and whisper things about God to my classmates. I failed the fourth grade because I was too embarrassed to go. That summer of fourth grade, my mother got into a high-speed chase with the police that ended at my house. I watched her get beat by police before they took her away.
That was the last time I spent the night in the same house as my mother. She was in the mental hospital most of my life. Now she lives in assisted living and I talk to her a few times a week. She still sees and hears things, but she doesn’t talk about it. I went through a lot of counseling as a child and it’s helped. I think it affected my two oldest brothers differently because they knew her when she was a normal mom. I always just thought the way she acted was like everyone else’s mom.
I wouldn’t change anything about the way I was raised. My dad did the best he could to support his family, and my mother, although sick, was caring and beautiful, and always made sure her kids were safe.”
“We Grew Up Living In A Shadow That Was Never Truly There”
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“My oldest brother from my dad’s previous marriage died of kidney failure when he was only 5. I was born about 11 or 12 years after his passing. We grew up visiting his grave every year and hearing stories of what he was like before he got sick. It makes you miss someone you’ve never met. You’re sad even though you never knew them. But you also have to strive for their level of perfection.
In my dad’s eyes, he was the perfect child. He always listened, called everyone sir or ma’am, never talked back, and would never hurt a fly. I think my dad kind of made this life for my brother in his head to deal with the tragedy.
My brother would have followed exactly in my dad’s footsteps and taken over the family business and had a perfect marriage with his own perfect children. My siblings and I never felt good enough compared to him.
We grew up living in a shadow that was never truly there. It hurt.”
They Can Only Imagine How Life Would Have Been
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“My brother died at birth due to the umbilical cord wrapping around his neck one year before I was born. My mother then died a year after I was born, which drove my dad into a depression and he turned into a heavy drinker.
An abusive step-mother came into the equation who never failed to blame me for my dad and overall lower my sense of worth. I eventually got old enough to leave and haven’t looked back, although I always wonder what it would have been like if he would have been alive today.”
A Child’s Imagination?
“My cousin had a baby boy ten years ago after struggling to conceive a couple times. Unfortunately, there were complications, and he died 13 hours after being born. They had a funeral and service for him. A couple years later, my cousin got pregnant again. She was bedridden but had a beautiful, healthy little girl who’s now in the first grade. She’s never really hidden her son from her daughter, but she didn’t tell her until about a year or so ago.
The day she decided to tell her was a little strange, though. Her daughter came in one day telling her mom about the little boy who played with her in her room. Her mom was confused and asked about it, assuming it was an imaginary friend. Her daughter said, ‘He said to tell you he misses you.’
My cousin asked, ‘What do you mean?’
Her daughter said, ‘My brother, he misses you.’
‘You don’t have a brother,’ replied my cousin.
‘Yes I do, he’s 6.’
It really freaked my cousin out, so she told her daughter about her older brother, who would’ve been that age. Realistically, the daughter may have overheard someone talking about him, but it was still creepy.
Besides that, she’s been really open with her daughter and everyone else about her son. She doesn’t want him forgotten. She’s healed from it but has also gained strength from it.”
His Dad Had A Touching Way Of Remembering A Lost Son
“My parents had one kid that passed away before I was born. My dad was always a very ‘I just want one kid’ type of guy, and he told this to my mom from the start, and they both agreed.
Growing up, they pampered me a lot. Looking back to my early years, my mom was very, very protective of me, and my dad was the one that usually told her to chill and that everything was going to be okay. I guess losing a child can do that to you.
Going into my teens, I think I had a pretty normal time. The one thing that I did note was that my dad every April 30th (that is Dia Del Niño in Mexico, a day to celebrate kids) would put a Hot Wheels car in this really nice glass shelf they have. One day, I asked, and he told me the story about the kid that came before me.
It’s not a topic we talk about often or at great length, to be honest, and knowing that they only wanted one kid… Apprently, it took them about 3-4 years to start trying to have kids again. And welp, here I am!”
Mother’s Day Was Always Tough
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“My mother lost twins at 36 weeks. This was before my brother and I were born. Mother’s Day was always the hardest. Not only because she had two children missing, but also because she lost them on Mother’s Day. I think my mom ended up always being a mom to every kid. She took in six other kids through out the years, she is always willing to help a kid have a better life.”
Their Mom Would Never Let Them Leave Without Saying “Goodbye”
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“My sister passed away from SIDS about six months before my mother found out she was pregnant with me. My mother was and still is extremely protective of me. She gets upset if when I lived at home, I’d leave without saying bye to her. She left my sister in her crib without saying goodbye on the night she died because she didn’t want her to get upset after already being put to bed. My father refused to be alone with me or watch me, ever, and he flat out told me when I was 6 years old that if my sister was still alive, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Keep His Memory Alive”
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“I’m 24 and had a half-sister die before I was born; she would be over 30 now if she had lived.
It was my mother’s first marriage when she was like 22 and there was a freak accident which resulted in her baby dying. I don’t even think she was one year old. The circumstances of her death had to be investigated to make sure it was an accident and not neglect so my mother wasn’t able to start her grieving process peacefully. Her marriage also dissolved almost immediately. My mom remarried eventually and had me with my father.
It’s weird to think about the fact that I’m an only child, but not a firstborn. It makes conversations about siblings with people I’ve just met kind of difficult because it’s not something I always feel comfortable talking about with just anyone. The people closest to me know, though.
It really changed my mom, even though I obviously have no frame of reference for what she was like before. She let me have plenty of freedom as a child, but my safety was closely monitored all the time. When I became a teenager, it was really important for her to know where I was and who I was with when I was out. I was kind of rebellious, but then one day it really hit me that the reason she was the way she was stemmed from her already knowing what it was like to lose a child, so I made sure from that point on to try my best to reassure her.
As for my feelings about my half-sister, I’ve always wondered how my life would have been different with her. What she would look like, if I would have nieces or nephews, if we would have been close or have ‘hated’ each other in the way siblings do. It would be nice to have that real sister connection I think. I have close girlfriends, but it’s not the same. The older I get, the more I feel as if something is actually missing. I visit her gravesite sometimes. My mom doesn’t go often, but when her birth and death dates roll around, she has a hard time. I think my immediate family, like my grandmother and aunts/uncles/cousins forget that we’re supposed to have another place setting at holidays and family celebrations because I’ve never really heard any of them mention her, but perhaps they just remember my mother’s grief when it was fresh and don’t want to bring up traumatic memories for her.
Recently, an acquaintance of mine lost her baby son to SIDS, so I called my mother to ask if she had any advice on how to express my condolences, and her answer surprised me. She said, ‘Everyone is going to walk on eggshells around her as much as they can. Don’t do that. They will think it best to not say the baby’s name or do anything that might remind her that her baby is dead. She will not forget, she will wake up with that as her first thought every day for the rest of her life. Say the baby’s name. Talk about him. Keep his memory alive as if he was right there with her because even though his life was cut so short, he still lived and was loved.'”
His Step-Brother’s Room Was Like A Time Capsule
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“My step-brother died of AIDS before my mom and his dad met. So while I’d been born, we weren’t yet related.
My step-dad hid his picture and a bunch of his stuff in the room that ended up being mine. He said he was too sad to look at it and too sad to throw it away.
It was like a time capsule of being gay in the early ’90s. My mom was bothered by it, but I kind of liked it. It was like I could get to know him and remember him, even if it hurt my step-dad. Sometimes, he would talk about him; he missed him a lot.”
She Was Aware Of Her Own Mortality
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“My oldest sister died just before her sixth birthday. I was born the next year. My parents talked about her my whole life, have her picture in the living room to this day, kept one of her stuffed animals for me so I’d have something that belonged to her.
I remember vividly the moment I realized I would die someday because I did the math and knew I was the exact age my sister was when she died and if it happened to her it could happen to me. This somehow temporarily turned into my thinking I would die that day.
I got a bunch of things that were important to me together (things like my ticket from the circus and my favorite stuffed animals), arranged them at the foot of my bed, and laid down with my arms crossed over my chest. Like, I just thought, ‘This is it.’
I probably only laid there for a few minutes before I got bored and decided this was taking too long, so I put my stuff back and went back to my normal day. I still have panic attacks about death occasionally.
There have definitely been times when I’ve felt like I was only born to replace my sister. I mentioned it to my mom once and she assured me I was an accident.”
Their Over-Protective Mother Was Afraid Of Losing Another Child
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“My second oldest sister passed away. My mom made it very clear to me there was seven of us, so I always say I’m the youngest of seven. When people ask me how many siblings I have, I always say two brothers and five sisters, one of which passed away (my siblings just say there’s 6 of us). People feel bad afterward, but I say it because I would feel weird leaving her out like she never existed, and that’s how my mom always explained it to me. I never met her, but she was my sister. Growing up I think I, more than all my other siblings, was affected by it. Even now, I just think about what she would be like, what she would sound like or look like.
I was around 6 or 7 when my mom told me about her and showed me pictures. She had her own little personality and you could tell by the pictures. We visit her plot in Guatemala (where my family is from) and my mom breaks down every time. She feels guilty for ‘leaving her there’ so to speak. I think that’s why it has always felt natural to include her because I have always been aware of the lack of her presence. Also, I’ve always been spoiled by my siblings and look up to them tremendously so finding out that there was another sibling, it just really hit me.
My mom was very overprotective of us as a result. My sister died when she was 9 months old and my mom said that for every single one of us, she felt like she couldn’t breathe until we passed 9 months of age. She never wanted any of us to leave her, and with me being the youngest it’s especially hard for her. My mom was abandoned at 10 months old, so her losing my sister made her all the more afraid of losing us.”
Their Mom Is A “Superhero” For How They Handled It All
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“I had a brother who died of Leukemia when he was 5 years old. He died during March and I was born in July of the same year. I am the youngest of six kids (including him). What makes the whole story worse is that my grandmother apparently had a mental breakdown during this time which triggered a heart attack and died.
I don’t feel like this affected me much at all, aside from as I get older, it saddens me that I had a brother I will never know. We have one VHS tape with him on it that with him saying, ‘Hello to the baby in Mommy’s tummy.’ That hits me in the feels.
But what really gets me is what my mother had to go through. Losing a 5-year-old son, her mother, and immediately having another baby sounds like the hardest thing ever. The fact that I had a relatively normal childhood makes her a superhero to me.”