Among Celine Dion’s 13 siblings is her older sister, Liette. In 1977, Lisette’s daughter, Karine, was born and later diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a medical condition that causes thick mucus to develop in the lungs, causing damage to several body systems. Karine Ménard died from complications of the disease at age 16 while her aunt held her. “I started to sing softly in her ear, and out of nowhere her eyes closed,” Dion recalled to People. “One tear came down Karine’s cheek, and then she went.” Dion later recorded the 1995 French song “Vole” in tribute to her niece, and became highly active in the charitable organization Cystic Fibrosis Canada.
The year 2016 was particularly tragic for the extended Dion family. In January, Dion’s older brother, Daniel, died. His death at age 59 to brain, tongue, and throat cancer, with which he’d been diagnosed several years earlier, came just two days following the cancer-related death of Dion’s husband, René Angélil. In the summer of 2016, Celine Dion’s sister Lisette learned that her husband, Guy Poirier, was diagnosed with cancer of the bones, brain, and lungs. He died in August 2016.
