Going Through Old Photos | POEM How I found out that I had a brother who died. Going Through the Old Photos Me, my dad and my brother we were looking through the old photos. Pictures of my dad with a broken leg and my mum with big flappy shorts on and me on a tricycle when we got to one of my mum with a baby on her knee, and I go, ‘Is that me or Brian?’ and my dad says, ‘Let’s have a look. It isn’t you or Brian,’ he says. ‘It’s Alan. He died. He would have been two years younger than Brian and two years older than you. He was a lovely baby.’ ‘How did he die?’ ‘Whooping cough. I was away at the time. He coughed himself to death in Connie’s arms. The terrible thing is, it wouldn’t happen today, but it was during the war, you see, and they didn’t have the medicines. That must be the only photo of him we’ve got. Me and Brian looked at the photo. We couldn’t say anything. It was the first time we had ever heard about Alan. For a moment I felt ashamed like as if I had done something wrong. I looked at the baby trying to work out who he looked like. I wanted to know what another brother would have been like. No way of saying. and Mum looked so happy. of course she didn’t know when they took the photo that he would die, did she? Funny thing is, though my father mentioned it every now and then over the years, Mum – never. And he never said anything in front of her about it and we never let on that we knew. What I’ve never figured out was whether her silence was because she was more upset about it than my dad – or less.