The hardest part about growing up is when you know you’re adopted or knowing that someone in your family died before you could meet them. Well, that was the hardest for me.

I remember the day like it had happened a few hours ago, even though it was about 10 years or so ago. I was seated on the cold, hard wood floor in my Mom’s room. My legs were sprawled out near my Mom’s bed, which was where my Mom was. Her bed was crowded with safes and a bunch of papers about bills, receipts and other documents so I wasn’t able to sit with her on the bed. My Mom leaned towards me. Her and I were looking at old photographs from her life before she began having children and her life before I was born.

The picture I had picked up was old and of someone in my family. The person in the photograph was covered in bruises, so I asked why. That was the moment I learned that there had been physical abuse in my “loving” family.

After I stuck the photograph between my legs, which was where the other already-been-analyzed pictures were, I found a picture of a baby boy. Mom had said that that was my older brother Anthony when he was a baby. But, my only older brother was Richard… That I knew of. Confusion had filled my entire body like I was a balloon being filled up with air.

My Mom then began to tell me more about her past that I didn’t really see in the pictures. Long story short, the baby boy in the picture had died one year, two months, and ten days before I was born. He was a stillborn. Anthony had died because someone in my family had hit my Mom’s stomach hard enough to murder the infant.

Finding out that I had another older brother that had been killed was hard for me. Brothers and sisters don’t necessarily get along, but when you find out your sibling has died or is dead you feel lost and helpless. When it comes down to it, your brother/sister helps protect you (when they’re alive).

Ever since then I make sure that every August 11th I say happy birthday to my older baby brother. Sometimes my Mom will even tell me stories of how he kicked when a certain song played on the car radio and how she would read to him and talk to him and tell him she can’t wait to meet him.

It’s amazing when you miss someone you never even met.