1961: The Brother I Never Met

I'm sorry I never met you, David. Janie didn't either. I'm not even sure if Michael was old enough to remember you. Leaving them at 6 months old crushed their spirits. With trying to live a normal (not grief-stricken life) of raising so many, I bet they just couldn't deal with the memory.

Grief is acknowledged more these days than it was back then.

All I can tell you is that I'm sorry you didn't grow up with us. And Mom and Dad saved your Christening dress in Mom's hope chest. And our cousins remember you well. And when I showed Michael a family picture that I thought I was the 6th baby in, I realized that it was you. Michael and I saw the somber faces in that photo and didn't know how to process it.

I'll tell you something else. My life was charmed because I was the first child born after you left. I was adored. Adored so much that all I wanted was to have a baby of my own to adore.

Mom gave that to me in the last child she birthed in 1967. I don't like not knowing a part of my family. but I also didn't know my twin or Janie's twin.

I made due very well with the family I was given. You set the stage for my life to happen as it has. Love you for that <3

1961:

David was the 6th Mullen. This picture was a year before I came around. From my perspective, I was number 6 of 7. I think when I was born, I was just a replacement.

There was a whole lot of Mullen's around before I entered the scene in 1962.

There are two "Irish Twin" girls born a decade before I was even a thought. Then there were the three brothers that I loved, lost, and speak of often. The boys were all just about three years apart in age. And then there was a brother that I never met.

His name was David and he died at 6 months old from SIDS.

I never met him. I didn't know him. His was not my first loss. I think his death rocked my family. When I look back at family pictures of that time, I can see that there was sadness in everyone's face. The death of an infant isn't something I can relate to. It must be horrifying to have to carry on after a loss like that.

Because I wasn't born yet, I have no memories of that loss and it wasn't spoken about during my lifetime.

The only indication that I have ever had that David existed was his Christening dress that was always saved in Mom's cedar chest. And I touched it often and kept it safe until I was locked away from my belongings in 2016.

What I know for sure is that the family born before me was living in a tenement house in the Smith Hill area of Providence. My family lived on the first floor and my Aunt, Uncle, and three cousins lived on the second floor. I'm sure my older sisters have vivid or buried memories of the tragic time, but I wasn't around.

What I had heard growing up was that my Aunt and Uncle were babysitting David at the time he died a "crib death". What I've recently learned from writing these stories is that a cousin a bit older than me has a particularly good recall of the situation as it played out.

My brother David was in a Pram baby carriage outside with the family and my Aunt and Uncle were watching the kids while Mom was gone - errands I'm sure. My Aunt had to pick up my cousin from school and left the baby with my Uncle who was doing some paint work on the house. David died of what we now understand is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). They didn't use that medical terminology back then. They also had not yet found a vaccine for Rhesus (Rh +/-) pregnancies which would probably have saved my twin and Janie's twin.

So, in the mind of the child cousin who told me these details, apparently, the death, or grief process took a toll on my Mom and her Sister. My cousin thinks that we moved to another house because of that tragedy. My cousin also regrets that when we moved, she lost her built-in large family.

I feel bad about that. Not my memories. What I can say is that Mom always spoke of having a big white house with blue shutters and that's what she bought. I can also add that if there were any hard feelings between those two sisters, I never noticed them. That Aunt and Uncle were always considered the favorites among me and all my siblings. Always there for us while growing up. until a tragedy hit their family. I think they had to move from RI to try and escape the tragedy that they endured. I will have to get cousin’s permission to share any more about that.

1961: The Brother I Never Met

Grief is acknowledged more these days than it was back then.

I'll tell you something else. My life was charmed because I was the first child born after you left. I was adored. Adored so much that all I wanted was to have a baby of my own to adore.

Mom gave that to me in the last child she birthed in 1967. I don't like not knowing a part of my family. but I also didn't know my twin or Janie's twin.

I made due very well with the family I was given. You set the stage for my life to happen as it has. Love you for that <3