Loss of a sibling before you were born

[evvilySubscriber]

My parents lost my older brother Ben when he was just two days old. He was born with a rare heart condition and was never going to survive. Ben was born 4 years before I was and so I never met him, but I still grieve for him and find that many people don’t really understand why. Ben is spoken about a lot within the family, and we regularly go to his grave so I know I can’t miss him as such because he was never in my life but it always feels as though someone is missing, and I suppose part of my grief is knowing the pain that my parents went through losing him. I am now 21 years old and when I’ve discussed my brother with other people I’ve often felt that people have shrugged off my upset with a ‘lots of people lose babies, yes its sad but it was ages ago and you didn’t even know him’ type line (obviously put more politely). Does anybody else experience this? Does anybody feel as though their grief is ‘unjustified’ ??

[caroiynSubscriber]

Wow, I FINALLY found someone in the exact same shoes at me. I lost my older brother Kyle before I was born too, expect he was gone due to an abortion. I’m not exactly “mad” at my parents for choosing that decision, but you know, a part of me still hopes that he is still here. When I tell people about my grief, people say the exact same things as they said to you, ewily, but it doesn’t make me feel better because for some reason I still feel incredibly connected to him. He doesn’t have a grave, but later I want one for him, so at least I have somewhere to go when I’m sad about it. The part that kills me the most is that no one knew his personality, what colour he liked, what he looked like, because he was never born, but I would die to know those things everyday. Even our own mother tells me to “shrug it off” because it happened almost two decades ago. But whatever anyone else says, I don’t feel like it’s “unjustified” because he is still a person, no matter how small he was when he left.

[Author]

Posts