With Halloween, or All Hallows eve on October 31st, and the Christian All Souls Day, or Day of the Dead, November 2nd, we three Co-Founders of the Replacement Child Forum thought we would touch on our personal spiritual experiences of being replacement children, coming from our respective traditions and different religious backgrounds.
My Soul to Keep
Judy L. Mandel
In the front of my book Replacement Child, is this:
I am older now than you will ever be.
Sometimes you come to me on the wind. A gentle whisper on
a morning breeze. Not to frighten your little sister.
At first I didn’t recognize you, but I know it’s you. Walking to school on a crisp fall morning I hear music. Sometimes a tune.
She was just seventeen . . .
Other times a soaring trumpet or a wailing sax. Music from
the trees, inside the clouds.
You point to everyday enchantments. Teach me to wallow in the small delights of this fleeting life.
I wrote those lines in my first writing class in college, more than 40 years ago. It was my first conscious recognition of something I had felt all my life. The presence of my sister, who I never knew in life. Those walks to school, at age seven or so, were not lonely or scary because I felt I was not alone. At the time, I had no understanding of why, or even much of an understanding of the fact that I was the replacement for my sister after her death. But I felt something, or someone, looking out for me.
The feeling morphed as I grew older, and often I forgot about it entirely through various tumultuous times. But even as my religious faith faded, I never lost the belief that we go on in some form after death. I credit my older dead sister for that unrelenting conviction. Did she wake me that time I nearly ran off the road? Or stop me from going on the road trip with a questionable guy? Or even turn my head to see my two-year-old reaching for a pot on the stove? I don’t know, of course, but I don’t rule it out!
Now, after the death of my other sister and my parents, and sadly my young niece, I sometimes feel a platoon of people with me. At different times they send me a subtle message when I need it. As I was writing my new book, I often heard my niece’s voice strongly telling me to make people understand about addiction. To see her as a person.
My plan is to follow my family’s lead when it’s my time to transition into the next life. If my son thinks I will leave him alone to muddle through on his own, he has another thing coming.
Moonshadow
Rita Battat
What kind of relationship do you have with a sibling you never knew but whose death was directly responsible for your life? When delving into it, I found it to be a complicated question and did not really know how I was going to begin writing about it.
I awoke the next morning with Cat Stevens song, Moonshadow, running through my head. His inspiration for that song came from the time when he was a young boy and out of the city for the first time. In the country and away from the glare of artificial lights, he finally had his first unobstructed view of the moon.
My brother, Robert/Bobby was 14 when he passed away from a genetic heart defect. I was born 18 months later as his replacement and given a name with the initial R in his memory. He was always spoken about as someone who was perfect and there was always much sadness when his name was brought up, so I never asked questions. Also, unfortunately I never got a sense of him as a real person.
When young, I resented him. No matter what I did he had always done it better. When very young and playing with his Lionel train set, I remember wondering if he would mind that I was using his things and suddenly was wishing that he was here with me and that I didn’t always have to be alone. That was the extent of my relationship with him.
Bobby came back into my thoughts when I became conscious of being a replacement child and what exactly that entailed. The many other adult replacement children who were so wonderfully open about their experiences and feelings when I was interviewing them for my book, Replacement Children: The Unconscious Script, allowed me to connect to my brother, as my brother, for the first time, and not as a ghost that I had to compete with.
The moon cycle connects with birth and death. Like in the song Moonshadow, I was finally seeing unobstructed.
I have been missing you – yet you were present
Kristina Schellinski
On All Souls Day we honor the dead. As a replacement child, I am thinking of my baby brother Wolfgang who died when he was two years old, six months before I was born. How would it be if he were around? I have longed for his presence ever since I can remember, growing up with the angelic-looking photo on the credenza, his hands folded. I have been missing you – yet, you were present.
At times, I fathomed I had energy for two, living my life with a double portion, his and mine, feeling almost compelled to do justice to the life force I was given. Sometimes, I dreamt of my brother and upon waking it felt like I had been visited.
I tend to my brother’s grave, still, some 60-some years later, in a cemetery now turned park, across from my childhood home. My memory of him is inspiring me. Now, the days where I was jealous of my mother missing her ‘ideal son’ and me not feeling ‘good enough’ have been scrutinized and are behind me.
“When I felt no longer the need to be like my brother …I became freer to become myself. His tragically abridged life became less of a burden and more a source of inspiration as I no longer believed that I owed my life to his disappearance, “ I wrote in my book Individuation for Adult Replacement Children.
Because of his absence and the grief it caused in the family, I was eventually led to a prolonged, intense search for the presence of my soul. In these November days, in the autumn of my life, I can imagine that he will be there one day, extending a hand to me when it is time for me to cross the river.
This year, I am especially grateful to reach out to adult replacement children via the ReplacementChildForum.com which Judy, Rita and I created during the Covid-19 pandemic, a creative endeavor in the midst of this virus’ destructive waves.
Sharing what we found on our way towards individuation, I wish for all that we can continue on our journey, bowing to the souls of those whose life was abridged and celebrating with thanksgiving for the life we were given.
Wishing you a special All Hallow’s Eve and All Soul’s Day.