The hardest thing about having a baby who’s died is remembering him without making other people uncomfortable.
Luke would be 5 months old on the 4th of July. I’ve begun planning a graveside balloon release that I know my daughter would enjoy. It feels very important to visit the grave on that day and allow ourselves to include him as part of our family for a short time.
It’s funny that I say that “include him as part of our family”. He IS part of our family, but it’s more physical when we visit the graveside, almost as if he’s there with us. That is not an unusual feeling, I’m sure.
Our nearly 6 year old daughter came home from school the other day and told us at dinner that she now knows 3 Lukes. One at her old school, one at her new school and the one who lives with us. I like how she thinks. He really does live with us in a way. There are even some days when I get up and think I need to make sure I have taken care of the baby and it’s not horrible when I realize I wasn’t quite aware of what I was thinking; almost comforting.
I love it that my daughter thinks and talks about Luke. She is the only one of our family besides me, my husband (rarely) and his father who talk about him openly. He is so present in my daughter’s life that she recently wanted to take a balloon home from a birthday party just for Luke. While I have to keep her grounded in the reality that Luke can’t truly appreciate the balloon, I am pleased that she would think of him in the middle of her fun.
I was sitting with a friend of mine who heard this interchange between my daughter and I; she has supported me through my pregnancy and then some. But she had no comment for what O had to say even when I reiterated how neat it was that O wanted to give the balloon to Luke. The silence is hard, but I’m not sure what I expect people to say either.
Having people ask about my children and how many I have is also a hard question. Most ask while O is with and say something like “Do you just have the one?” I say yes, but feel I am betraying the memory of my son. When I have attempted to explain that I have only one surviving child, it’s been very awkward, with the person on the other end apologizing and me, not knowing how to accept an apology.
Sometimes it seems like you’re accounting for them the same way you might say I have one brother who is a blood relation and five step brothers and sisters. Like the five step brothers and sisters are less qualified than the one blood brother. It feels the same with Luke. “Yes, I have one living child and one who no longer qualifies as a child because he’s not with us but is still loved like one.” I hate the ambiguousness of it.
O, on the other hand, has no problem with this and she has no feelings of needing to comfort another person. It is fact to her. I learn from her whose feelings about her brother are pure and simple. He lives with us, looks over us from Heaven, and we visit him at the cemetary. What is there to apologize for?
