Member-only story
Some absences never leave the room.
The Brother I Never Knew, But Somehow Always Felt
A reflection on inherited grief, family silence, and emotional memory.
He was a name in the air. My brother died before I was born.
His name was Jeremy. He lived for a few months — long enough to be real, not long enough to leave behind much more than a ripple.
There are no home videos, no hand-me-down toys, no stories of us playing in the yard together. And yet, I grew up with the sense that he was always there. Not with us, but in us.
I didn’t understand it as a child. It was more like a feeling — that the air in our house was heavy in ways I couldn’t explain. There was a sadness no one spoke about, but that everyone had learned to move around. Sitting like furniture no one dared to move.
I came last in the family. My sister was born after Jeremy, then me. So I wasn’t the “next child” after he passed. But still, I grew up in his shadow.
His name was never forbidden, but it wasn’t exactly welcomed either. It would come up in moments when my mother’s voice softened, when her eyes glazed over just a little too long. There were photos in dusty albums, a small ceramic angel on a shelf that no one…
