There is nothing worse than a parent losing a child, and that pain will never fully go away.

What would you do if you lost your sister when you were just a few months old and your parents could never get over their grief to focus on you?

That is what happened to the young lady in this story, and it all came to a head when she went off to college without pictures of her sister.

Check out the details below.

AITA for refusing to take a photo of my sister to college with me?

Before my parents had me (18m) they had my sister “Emily”.

Emily was 3 years older than me and she died when I was a few months old.

Of course, how could they?

My parents never recovered.

My whole childhood I was in the shadows of the child they lost.

That is sad, they needed to remember they had two kids.

I get that grief does things to people and that losing a child is the worst loss a parent can suffer, but it was like I didn’t exist most of the time.

They talked about Emily all the time.

Sometimes they could acknowledge she was gone but more often than not she was talked about like she was still around.

The most attention I got from my parents is when they force fed words about how much I loved Emily.

It never came natural for me to say “I love Emily and I miss her so much”.

I didn’t know Emily.

But I did feel haunted by her.

I had a big photo of Emily on the wall opposite my bed growing up.

They wanted me to fall asleep to my sister looking over me.

It always felt creepy.

But they had photos of her in every room, even the bathroom.

I remember trying to take the photo in my room down and my parents had a hugely explosive reaction.

Like I’m talking they yelled so loud the neighbors came to check on us.

It sounds like the parents needed some grief therapy.

Emily’s room was never touched after she died and sometimes my parents would sit in there for hours sometimes.

I was also forced to sit with them in there sometimes.

But I had to be very careful because I couldn’t touch anything or make the room filthy.

Extended family were always so caught between being nicer to me to try and make up for my parents or coddling my parents and putting the weight of their grief and Emily’s death on my shoulders.

They would tell me not to be so harsh on my parents when they (my parents) would let me down.

My parents could never celebrate anything I did.

At least she had her extended family.

My extended family tried to fill that gap, but sometimes it felt like they came just to lecture me about compassion and understanding.

I did good through school despite getting no help or support from my parents and I got a full scholarship to college.

Before I left, my extended family came over to say goodbye and “celebrate” a little, because there could be no celebrating me at my parents house.

My parents had these photos of Emily for me to take.

They told me I’d need them for my dorm.

But I left them behind.

I didn’t want to take photos of Emily.

I wanted to get away from them and that might seem really unfair.

They need to let this go.

My parents realized the next day and I got a text from my dad calling me all sorts of names for leaving them behind.

Then my extended family said I could have taken one and should, because Emily is still my sister and I should still try to “remember” her for my parents sake if not mine.

AITA?

That is a horrible situation for everyone involved, but her parents need to understand that their grief is not hers.

People in the comments have other good thoughts to share, take a look.

This person points out that none of this is the daughter’s fault.

The relatives are trying to help, but could be doing more.

Yes, getting some distance is important.

This person agrees that the parents need professional help.

This commenter says that this is a very sad situation.

These grieving parents need to get some professional help.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.