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The Birth Of My Brother

Decent Essays
Originally, you and your brother were supposed to have another brother – you were to be born triplets. Of course, it was absolutely terrible on your mother. She was always eating too much and then throwing it up the next morning. The doctors weren’t overly worried (well, not anymore than they would be for any other upcoming triplet delivery) until your mother insisted on birthing you all the “natural way.” No matter how much the doctors advised against it, she stood firm, saying that she wouldn’t be “sliced open like a frog in a high school biology lab.” So, your brother came out first, weighing a measly 3 pounds, 4 ounces. Next, you, at 5 pounds, 7 ounces. Lastly, your would-be other brother came out stillborn and underweight even for a triplet. Your parents were devastated, you mother most of all. She had carried all of you for so long, only for one to be dead; it wasn’t fair, and she repeatedly said as much to your father, the doctors, and the neighbors.

Your mother was diagnosed with severe postpartum depression. Obviously, you don’t remember it. You’ve only heard stories – how she shambled from place to place, stopped cooking, refused to hold either you or your brother half the time.

But you do remember one day when you were five, just starting school; your parents dropped you and your brother off, but before they left, they were approached by a woman with greasy shoulder-length hair and eyes that never stayed in one spot for too long. She must have had asthma, you
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