Tragedy struck Valerie Bertinelli’s family before she was born.
The actress is the third of five children born to Nancy, a stay-at-home mom, and Andrew, an executive at General Motors.
“When I came into the world, my mom was grieving,” the 60-year-old told People magazine on Wednesday about her upbringing in Wilmington, Del.
“She was pregnant with me when my brother Mark died,” she continued. “He was only 17 months old. He died in the most horrible way. They were visiting a friends’ farm and he wandered off unsupervised and drank poison out of a bottle that wasn’t supposed to have poison in it. It was a soda pop bottle.”
According to the outlet, the former “One Day at a Time” star wouldn’t learn about Mark’s death until her early teenage years.
“The subject was too painful,” she said. “My parents kept the tragedy locked inside.”
It would be years later, after her grandmother’s death, when Bertinelli returned to Delaware for the burial and gained a new understanding of the great loss her parents endured.
“My grandmother was buried not far from Mark’s grave,” she said. “I was holding Wolfie [her son with first husband Eddie Van Halen] who was 17 months old and thinking, ‘How did my mom survive?’ She had to keep going and I learned that from her.”
“She had to carry on,” said Bertinelli. “She had a very hard life. She always tried to make the best of everything. [That day,] I grew more in love with [my parents], knowing what they had gone through.”
Bertinelli said that the lesson of carrying on was “ingrained in me from a very young age.”
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“I felt like I had to make everyone happy,” she pointed out. "It’s a big job for a little kid.”
Bertinelli’s father passed away in 2016. Her mother died last June.
“I know they both did the best they could,” she said.
The star admitted she thinks of her mom often.
“Every so often, I still want to call her up and ask her about a recipe,” she said.
Bertinelli said she’s sharing her struggles in hopes it will help other others.
“You can’t make everybody like you – that is scientifically impossible – but you can connect with people who need to hear your story, and my hope is I hope I can connect with someone who needs to hear my story.
“More than ever we need to treat ourselves with kindness and it starts with ourselves,” she added.
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