The Legacy of a Big Brother: Stefanie Weber

By Stefanie Weber

If I could summarize my life in one phrase, it would be: “Nothing happened as intended.”

As the youngest of three siblings, with my sister Désirée being eight years older and my brother Sascha being ten years older, I was the little protected chick in the nest.

At eight years old, I didn’t think that the biggest nightmare and heartbreak of my life would unfold right in front of me out of nowhere.

In 2004, my brother Sascha had severe recurring headaches that no one could explain. Sometimes he would vomit and feel unwell in the morning, and it would be good again by afternoon. Doctor visits said it was a virus, maybe a migraine, but definitely nothing to be worried about. He sometimes had blackouts during exams, but again nothing to be worried about. His vision had worsened a bit, so he got prescription glasses, and a little rebellious phase, which was nothing strange for a 17/18-year-old who was trying to figure out his way in life.

Then came July 25th, a date that would turn our whole world upside down. On that Sunday morning, I can still remember so vividly how he was lying down in the bathroom, saying, “I’m dying.” He had one of his worst attacks, and our parents rushed him to the ER. After giving him some medications against his nausea, they wanted to blame it again on a stomach bug, but due to the fact that our general doctor had prescribed a CT scan of his head, they were forced to do one.

And there it was — a mass in his Thalamus, a brain tumor.

My brother had to stay in the hospital immediately, and my parents came home to announce the diagnosis to my sister and me. All I remember is that I started to cry and that I ran into my bedroom. The biopsy gave the clarification that we were talking about Grade 4 Brain Cancer, a glioblastoma. One of the deadliest brain tumors you can get, as it is such a complicated pathology regarding its place and the way it even invades healthy brain tissue. It’s like a death sentence from the beginning.

What was in front of us was a 15-week-long battle of seeing my brother fight and suffer against an unfair component with no remedy in sight, something that was impossible to grasp for me at eight years old. There’s science, there’s research, there’s medicine for everything, so why is no one able to help my brother? Why and how on earth would my brother die?

My mom stayed with my brother at the hospital, and we came to visit him every single day. We even got a room where we could come and go whenever we wanted, to spend as much time as possible together. They were never able to remove the tumour because of its placement and its size of five centimetres. There was only a cyst with brain fluid that they punctured every few days, as it blocked his third ventricle, which would make his brain pressure spike rocket high. He also had constant meningitis due to an infection he contracted in the hospital, which made all efforts to start radiation and chemotherapy useless.

On September 18th, he was able to finally come home.

To me, as his eight-year-old little sister, this was the best news in the entire world because for me that meant he was doing better and the worst might be over. I still remember when all his infusion pumps were gone, and he said to me, “Now I can finally wrap you in my arms again.” Maybe they did find a solution in the hospital. I didn’t understand that his final eight weeks were starting.

His condition worsened pretty fast; my parents had to go to the hospital at least once a week with him. The pain levels were hard to manage, and he was even close to falling into a coma once because of the brain pressure. Due to the infection, although it had been controlled with a special mix of antibiotics, his wounds from the brain surgeries didn’t want to heal. So still no radiation or chemotherapy, as the two had to start together.

He got a brain shunt system installed to help with the brain pressure, but that was it. As the weeks passed, Sascha started to change more and more. Physically and mentally.

I sometimes would watch him with big eyes because I couldn’t grasp what was happening. His final week started October 31st with a very prominent memory of him and I together. I came with my pillow and stuffed animals and sat in the chair next to his bed and said to him that now I would look over him.

Later I sat with him on his bed, and we watched “Hocus Pocus.” A movie which holds a very special meaning to me, as I only realized in my twenties, as I rewatched it, that the core story is about sibling loss. On November 6th, the worst that could happen happened. The infection in his body came back and caused a devastating problem with his shunt system. It completely failed. The doctor said the chance was close to zero that taking it out and putting a new one in would change anything. So we decided this was it.

My brother wanted that we all go to have dinner at a restaurant — in the end, a final supper together. At 10:00 AM the next morning, on November 7th, he fell into a coma he would never wake up from again, and he took his last breath at 4:15 PM.

My entire world collapsed as I started to hyperventilate and hide. My last words to him were “Don’t leave me alone.” Something that no one tells you is that you die with your loved one. That version of you that once existed dies and never comes back. A loss so profound and deep changes your whole entire being and pathway in life. My little body had trouble surviving Sascha’s death. I became sick and felt so weak I couldn’t leave my bed anymore. It was slowly that I started to sing along to songs to help soothe me when I was overwhelmed by grief. Although this was nothing new, as before my brother’s illness I was a real entertainer, and always performing and singing for everyone — now music had a different effect, a different purpose.

It wasn’t until I was 12 that I finally found the courage to participate in a talent contest at high school, where I sang “Start All Over” by Miley Cyrus. Everyone was stunned by how that shy little girl was able to sing like that. What started with singing lessons and some school concerts turned into a slowly carved path into the music industry. But I had a decision to make, as my initial dream was to head for medical studies in honor of Sascha. I decided not to participate in Latin classes but to put my efforts into music. At 16, I got the opportunity to go abroad to Freilassing in South Bavaria to study music at a Pop Academy after already participating in two bootcamps. Music gave me a reason to live, a purpose, a passion that made me put one foot in front of the other to keep going with the grief. I had so many dark moments in my life, and although music made me continue, I was deep down in an eating disorder during that time, battling anorexia.

After having completed my studies, it took some time to find my way into the real music industry, especially finding the right people to work with and to be able to trust. Like a shark tank — that’s what the music industry is like, and if you don’t learn how to swim, the wrong people will eat you up.

So in 2017, TYRA was born and with that the releases of my own written songs. My music holds a lot of melancholia, which I find is a good way to also describe myself. There’s always something missing in my life, and it simply is my brother. Music just helps me to hold myself together. The pandemic in 2020 was harsh for the music industry and put me in the position to retake my last three final high school years to get my A levels and have a Plan B in mind.

This also led me to take the leap to go to university in 2024 and take the Bachelor of Nursing Science, as this felt like the possibility to take a way back into the medical field. I just didn’t expect that this would make all the grief that I hadn’t processed properly as an eight-year-old hit me like a wave at 28.

It felt like Sascha had just died again, and it really made me lose my entire balance. It was in April 2025, when I had my first studio session after university and wrote the lyrics to what is now my song “Sascha.” I was finally able to write his song and put my grief into words. This also led me to start my Instagram account “Sibling Loss Journey” to put a focus on sibling loss, Sascha’s story and my grief journey. I feel like a new way, a new possibility in dealing with my grief was born with writing Sascha’s song, and that’s in finding ways to share his story and talking about how hard it is for us siblings to manage life after our brother or sister has died. How there is a piece of you missing.

On June 19th, 2026, on what would have been his 40th birthday, I was able to release Sascha’s song into the world and was hit by such a supportive wave which I had not expected. The music video was very challenging emotionally, as I wanted to film in places he spent a lot of time in, happy times, and I digitized a lot of our family videos — also videos of our final weeks together. I think my only thought process in the entire creation was to create something that would make him proud and show my unconditional love that I am unable to express to him in person anymore. A love declaration of a little sister to her big brother.

If there is something I know, it is that music kept me alive. And that, like a lotus flower, art gives us the possibility to create something beautiful that touches people, even in the most excruciating and hopeless situations of our lives. I don’t know how it is possible, but with my faith, I believe God puts things into our lives to help us navigate through the darkness. It won’t take the pain; it won’t mend it, but it will help us to wake up each day.

For more information about Stefanie, you can check out her website.