My Big Brother

Growing up I always felt that someone or something was missing in our family.

It wasn’t until I was in my early teens, that my brother and I discovered we had an older stepbrother, my mother’s first-born child from her first marriage, prior to meeting our father.

Sadly, I never knew my stepbrother, who was delivered stillborn.

My mother at the time, heavily sedated due to a caesarean delivery, never saw or held her son, who was whisked away before she gained consciousness. A common practise back in the in the early 1960’s.

I believe my mother never fully grieved the loss of her first born. She only once or twice mentioned this traumatic event to my brother and I, and never even spoke of the baby’s name.

I often wonder how different our family would have been, had my mother given her first born child a place in our family, as the eldest of her 3 children?

Would the acknowledgement of my stepbrother and / or celebration of his short life, help lift a deep sadness that was inside my mother?

The work done in Family Constellations, uncovers hidden dynamics within the family system, such as 'missing children'.

By acknowledging those that are missing and giving them their rightful place in the family, order can be restored to the family system and profound healing can occur.