Cindy Crawford struggled with survivors guilt following her brother's death from leukemia
Cindy Crawford is reflecting on her younger brother Jeff, who died when she was a child, and how she and her sisters had "survivors guilt" for living.
Years after her brother's death, Cindy Crawford is opening up about her experience of losing a sibling.
Crawford described what it was like growing up in a home with a sick sibling, revealing that she and her sisters weren't entirely privy to the severity of her brother's condition – he was battling leukemia.
"I was 8, my older sister would have been 10. My younger sister would have been 4 and Jeff was like 2, turning 3 when he got diagnosed, and then he was sick for two years," she said while appearing on the "Kelly Corrigan Wonders: About Your Mother" podcast series.
After learning of his diagnosis, the family divided and conquered. Crawford's mother was responsible for taking Jeff to receive cancer treatment two hours away while her father worked to pay the bills.
"I mean we kind of had to get pawned off on aunts and uncles and grandmas, and fortunately, we had an extended family in our town.," she said of herself and her sisters.
Crawford added that the division was "definitely a hardship" for her family, but that she "didn't really feel it as a kid. And I didn't know – we knew [Jeff] was sick, but we didn't really know what was going on."
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Crawford said that after Jeff passed away, her mother made a conscious decision to keep pushing forward for her three other children, something Crawford only understood later in her life after having her son, Presley.
"When he died, obviously that was devastating for the whole family. I think for my mother, she was able and chose to really grieve properly. She went to death and dying courses. She has a very strong faith. So she was able to move through grief. I think for my father, he had to go to work three days later… They just handled it very differently."
"She was able to help us deal with it. I remember when I had my first kid… then I called my mom and was like, ‘OK, how did you survive?’ You know? 'Cause you can't imagine losing a child until you have a child."
She and husband Rande Gerber are parents to Presley, 24 and Kaia, 22.
She said, "But I remember her saying, ‘Well, I had three other kids looking at me like to lead them through this.' And I think because of us, she kind of got out of bed."
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The supermodel is the second-born, cushioned between sisters Chris and Danielle. Collectively, they all felt guilty for outliving their younger brother.
"I’m not sure [my parents] definitely wanted four kids, but they wanted a boy. My dad wanted a boy… The fourth was the boy. And I think there was a lot of guilt. I was talking about this with someone yesterday who lost a sister, like there's survivor guilt of the other kids and especially because we knew that my dad really wanted a boy," Crawford admitted.
"And we felt like, ‘Well, it should have been one of us.’ And it was so weird, like for years my sisters and I would all have like these same nightmares… that it should have been one of us."
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Only in adulthood has Crawford been able to fully come to peace with that guilt, acknowledging at the time that she needed to know she was still wanted by her mother despite Jeff's loss.
"My mom wouldn't have known to say this," Crawford said. "She was 26 years old and had just lost a child… I needed to hear, 'Yes, we're so sad that Jeff died, but we're so happy you're here.' And, of course, my mom didn't know how to say that. But then, through doing the work myself, I was able to ask my mom to say that now, as an adult… just to kind of close the loop on that feeling."
Crawford says she experienced that moment with her sisters, and that it "was great."
"It wasn't like this staring in the eyes… serious moment… the words still resonated in a way."